The new University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust is installing a care coordination platform to join up its operations across multiple hospital sites.
It has begun working with software supplier System C on the full integration of trust patient management and electronic record systems, which is due to be completed towards the end of 2022.
This involves rolling out the company’s CareFlow Connect collaboration software and the creation of networks for patient-identified communications between care teams.
Clinicians will use the system to manage paperless referral and team-to-team conversations between different sites so patients can be referred to any hospital within the trust. CareFlow will facilitate electronic referrals using a structured situation, background, assessment and recommendation (SBAR) format.
University Hospitals Sussex came into being last month from the merger of Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust. It runs five main hospital sites with 1,767 beds and around 20,000 staff, caring for 1.8 million people in Sussex.
Two of the hospital sites in Brighton have used System C’s patient administration system and theatre solution since 2018. They are due to adopt further care coordination functions such as electronic handovers, shared patient lists, clinical tagging and task management.
Great start
Rob Haigh, medical director at University Hospitals Sussex, said: “We are off to a great start with our digital strategy and plans for integrating care for patients across Sussex by giving clinicians the tools to support the complex patient flows between our hospitals.
“The implementation has started, and we are working towards an initial go live by the autumn.”
The contract for the project was awarded using NHSX’s new clinical communications framework.
Image from iStock, Berekin Health
