Oxford live at second attempt

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust has managed to get Cerner Millennium ‘deployed in a live environment’ at all of its hospital sites at the second attempt.

The trust achieved a ‘technical’ go-live last month, when it updated the system at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre; but it then had to postpone a go-live at its three other hospitals at short notice.

However, it now says the system has been deployed in a live environment at the Churchill, John Radcliffe and Horton General hospitals.

The trust is now using Millennium for its patient administration system, and its maternity and A&E departments. It said the go-live on 3 December went “successfully – as planned.”

It added: “The trust has worked closely with partners BT, Cerner, and the Southern Programme for IT on the implementation over the past year and is pleased with how things have gone so far.”

The trust will now look to expand use of the system to include further clinical functionality in future phases of deployment.

The move makes Oxford the second of the three ‘greenfield’ sites for which BT is contracted to deliver Millennium in the South to go live.

Oxford, Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust are all due to receive the system from BT under a contract signed last April as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

It was intended to have all three trusts running with Millennium by the end of this year. Bath was the first to go live in July. The final greenfield site, North Bristol, is now planning for its go-live.

North Bristol told eHealth Insider last week that it would launch the system “in the next few weeks” when it would transition from “two old systems, into a single new one.”

“We have planned in the initial go-live for the emergency department to be virtually paperless and for a number of nursing assessments to be done electronically through the trust.”

Martin Bell, director of assurance, information and technology, said the trust was “on schedule for a smooth transition.”

BT’s £69.1m contract to deploy Millennium at the three Greenfield sites came after it won a deal to support the eight (now seven) Southern sites that implemented Millennium while Fujitsu was local service provider, and to deliver 25 RiO deployments to community and mental health trusts.

The requirement to deliver to a fourth greenfield site dropped off during the negotiations.

By the time Bath went live with Millennium in July, it had been waiting for the system for five years – the trust had been due to get the new system before Fujitsu left the programme in April 2008.