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Leicestershire Pathology Service
“The flexibility of iSOFT’s Laboratory Systems solution provides a backbone to support the changing demands that the future will bring to Leicestershire Pathology Services. We are now in a position where we can enhance and upgrade the application with regular updates from iSOFT and cope with growth in demand for our services. With our workload growing by around ten per cent a year, that’s very important.”
Paul Smalley
Leicestershire Pathology Services
Introduction
Leicestershire Pathology Service (LPS) provides diagnostic pathology services to the whole of Leicestershire, employing a total of around 350 staff and handling over 2 million requests per annum. As part of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, LPS operates labs at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General Hospital and Glenfield Hospital plus a satellite lab in Hinckley. i.Laboratory operates across the service in Haematology, Biochemistry, Immunology, Blood Transfusion, Histology, Cytology and Microbiology.
Why i.Laboratory?
After a full EU procurement, LPS selected the i.Laboratory integrated pathology system to replace five different laboratory systems and to support the reorganisation of the laboratory structure. LPS wanted to work with a system that was already being used successfully in a large site and could operate across multiple sites. i.Laboratory was chosen over rival solutions because it matched LPS’s comprehensive detailed specification very closely.
“i.Laboratory provided almost 100 per cent conformance to our specification and iSOFT has a significant team of staff involved in support and development of i.Laboratory,”
Paul Smalley.
Implementation
During the implementation process, iSOFT provided comprehensive support throughout the project planning and go-live period. As a result, LPS would be more than happy to work with iSOFT again.
“Our implementation was extremely successful and in fact, exceeded our expectations,”
Paul Smalley.
Benefits
Integration of information within i.Laboratory has facilitated the creation of a central clerical function where samples can be requested by a single team.
Facilities within i.Laboratory – such as automatic authorisation have generated efficiencies and helped LPS to cope with the growing demand for its services.
“Between 60 and 80 per cent of our routine work in some areas is now being automatically authorised using rules and range checks,”
Paul Smalley
Integration has allowed LPS to use the system to generate all test result reports in order of ward or GP van delivery from a centralised high-speed laser printing facility. This allows results to be sorted and dispatched much more quickly. Reports are also automatically directed to any of the three main sites for printing. On top of that, because the system is integrated, staff can carry out multidisciplinary enquiries on results.
“Multidisciplinary reports are being produced for a ‘one stop clinic’ where patients drop in for blood tests, ECGs and chest X-rays immediately prior to their outpatient appointment.”
Paul Smalley
i.Laboratory also allows LPS to generate the information necessary for the management of LPS’ finances and contracts, as well as providing data on departmental workloads and underlying trends. Data can be easily exported to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and business intelligence tools for further manipulation and reporting.
Five years on
The relationship between LPS and iSOFT is very good and has strengthened over time.
“We have been happy with the level of support and it has been very useful having a dedicated member of the support staff assigned to our site,”
Paul Smalley
i.Laboratory is constantly evolving, to allow LPS to meet the rapidly changing demands of a modern pathology service.
“i.Laboratory has been flexible enough to support us during the achievement of many new projects including electronic reporting to some ward areas and GPs”
Paul Smalley
In choosing i.Laboratory LPS has a sound and stable laboratory system to carry it into the future.
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