Univ Birmingham to deploy Oceano

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust will go live this autumn with a new emergency department information system from CSE Healthcare.

The trust has been working with the company for the past year to develop the emergency care software, which has become the first module in CSE’s Oceano acute hospital system.

Implementation has already started in the emergency department of the new £545m Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The trust’s existing A&E department runs Ascribe Symphony.

Executive medical director David Rosser told eHealth Insider said the new system would not be piloted, as a large amount of initial testing had been completed during system development.

The Birmingham trust decided to work with CSE to develop the system after forming a successful partnership with the company to market its PICS (Prescribing Information and Communications System).

The trust will not pay to use the Oceano module because of this involvement. Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is the first to buy the new system, and will also go live in September.

PICS is a rules based e-prescribing and clinical decision support system that has been running at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for about six years.

However, there have been issues with integrating PICS with its patient administration system. The trust received iSoft’s iPM patient administration system under the National Programme for IT in the NHS, but Rosser said it needs upgrading.

“We have been and are still using iPM, which is masquerading as Lorenzo in much of the country, but we don’t see iPM as a long term viable product.”

Rosser said the trust had no confidence the national programme would provide a suitable replacement for iPM in the timeframe needed, so it had decided to partner with CSE with a view to creating a PAS for the future.

“We need a higher quality PAS across the board and we are hopeful CSE will be the provider of that. We’ve had a good relationship with them and are confident something may be provided.”

The trust will start by integrating PICS with the Oceano emergency system, which Rosser said would take about three months of work.

CSE Healthcare strategic development director Alistair Eaton said the partnership with the trust was key to providing a quality product.

“We are very proud of our track record in developing high quality systems for the NHS and have always understood the need to work closely with leading NHS trusts when bringing new products into the market.

“CSE’s Oceano design team has been working with senior clinicians within the emergency department at UHB to design the functionality within Oceano’s emergency care module.

“We have been delighted with the input received from UHB and firmly believe that their clinical input has been instrumental in delivering an easy to use piece of software that offers a fresh approach to managing the emergency department.”

The company said further PAS and EPR functionality would be released this year.