2006

iSOFT EPR goes live in North Staffs

iSOFT has replaced a legacy patient administration system (PAS) and other largely bespoke systems with its Windows-based applications. These include results reporting, A&E, theatres, maternity, clinical coding and data warehousing. The new applications will be fully integrated with existing departmental systems for pharmacy, pathology, microbiology, renal and oncology.

Subsequent phases will see order communications, clinical noting and prescribing added to the suite and, in parallel with a picture archiving and communications system, will give the trust a full EPR, while also making digital images available to healthcare providers across North Staffordshire.

Migrating up to 14 years’ worth of patient data, while ensuring data integrity and quality, was a major challenge. Many millions of data items are now accessible from any of the new applications.

The IT investment is part of a major modernisation programme. Central to the ‘Fit For the Future’ project is a £300m scheme for a new 1,169-bed acute hospital on the University Hospital site and a new community hospital.

The ten-year contract with iSOFT was signed ahead of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), so North Staffs remains outside the programme’s North West and West Midlands cluster. Having an NPfIT-compliant system was vital, but made easier because the cluster has an identical iSOFT solution.