Somerset NHS Foundation Trust has begun to deploy a digital medicines platform in which the Somerset Integrated Digital e-Record (SIDeR) system has been integrated with Better Meds electronic prescribing and medicines administration system.
The trust is currently running a live clinical validation across admission areas before it carries out iterative improvements ahead of a phased roll out across all of its acute, community health and mental health services.
It follows the launch of a Better Meds pilot within maternity services at Yeovil hospital in September, after the merger of Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust in April 2023.
This will create a shared medicines record for patients, automatically populating hospital records with medication information from GP and other care provider records.
Better said this makes it easier for clinicians and care providers to review a patient's medicines history and active prescriptions. Secondary care clinicians will be able to create active electronic prescriptions, with minimal transcription between information sources.
Plan for expansion
Somerset Foundation Trust implemented the system in partnership with Better, CGI, and Black Pear. It now plans to expand the use of Better Meds across the remaining wards at Musgrove Park Hospital by early 2024.
Its associate chief clinical information officer and associate director of pharmacy, David Chalkley, said: “The shared medication data from care providers across the region will give patients more continuity of care.
“When a patient moves between hospitals, for example, the clinician does not need to restart their medication prescriptions, and the medications they had previously prescribed can be transferred over. In addition to enhancing patient safety, it will result in shorter prescription times and more time spent on patient care."
