One of the largest NHS trusts in England has gone live with the Allscripts Sunrise EPR, five months after signing a contract with the US health IT giant.

WHAT HAPPENED

Located in the south west, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides acute services from two hospitals, Gloucestershire Royal and Cheltenham General, in addition to maternity services at Stroud Maternity.

The organisation announced that it would be working with the Chicago-headquartered company in May this year. It initially planned to start the implementation process the following summer, however, the deployment was later moved to an earlier date to help its staff cope with the demand expected by the NHS this winter.

Last week, figures from NHS England showed that every major unit in the country failed to reach the four-hour A&E waiting time target in November, the worst in over a decade.

At the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, two wards went live with seven nursing documentation and risk assessments last month, followed by a further 22. Over 1,500 nursing staff are now reportedly using the EPR as part of the first rollout, with planning for phase two underway. 

To achieve this, the trust adopted a 'clinical wrap' strategy - retaining its existing patient administration system (TrakCare) and 'wrapping' clinical functionality around it. 

“With a busy winter ahead, we were determined to do everything that we could to support better, safer decision making for our staff,” said Mark Hutchinson, chief digital and information officer at the trust. “We ran a very successful pilot and then put all our energy and resources into supporting staff on 24 wards at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to go live with this system,” he added.

Hutchinson was previously chief information officer at two other NHS trusts that were also Allscripts customers. 

THE LARGER TREND

Allscripts was rated as the top EPR vendor for UK and Ireland in a report released by Black Book Market Research in September – you can read more about their research here.  

In the US, most recently, the company announced in October that it would work with Northwell Health to build an AI-based, cloud-hosted, voice-enabled EPR.

ON THE RECORD

“We have delivered a very successful initial rollout in a short timeframe thanks to the dedication and commitment of both GHFT [Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust] and Allscripts staff. We are determined to push on and achieve our aim of using technology to support the kind of high-quality care that our patients deserve, and our staff aspire to deliver,” Hutchinson added in a statement.

Richard Strong, vice president and managing director of Allscripts for EMEA, said: “We look forward to working with the trust on further deployments and on helping it to achieve its stated ambition to join the select band of HIMSS 6 trusts in the UK.”

Gloucestershire now intends to deploy the system at Cheltenham General Hospital next year.