Second southern RiO site goes live

Hampshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has become the second southern trust to go-live with RiO, following the additional contract that BT was awarded under the National Programme for IT in the NHS last year.

The trust went live on 1 February with version 5.2 of electronic patient record system from CSE Healthcare Systems. This includes single sign-on using a smartcard, access to the NHS Personal Demographics Service and access to Choose and Book.

The system, which took around ten months to implement, is now being used by more than 500 staff across the Mid Hampshire part of the trust.

Hampshire Partnership says RiO will create one record per patient, which will result in reduced duplication, better caseload management and improved recording and reporting, leading to improved outcomes.

Andy Clapper, director of information and performance and deputy chief executive, told E-Health Insider: “It’s been the most successful deployment I have been involved in and we’ve had similar comments from our BT and SHA colleagues.

“It’s been a great team effort. Best of all, the clinicians have taken to RiO really positively and we are confident that the benefits we have identified will start to flow very swiftly."

The trust is still using paper processes until the trust-wide implementation is completed. Thee next phase should happen in April.

“RiO is being introduced in a phased approach due to the sheer numbers of staff requiring training and to allow the electronic data to be migrated to the system. There will be four more go-lives, with full implementation due to be completed in January 2011,” Clapper added.

In April last year, BT signed a £546m deal to install RiO in 25 mental and community health sites in the South of England, to support the ‘Live8’ acute trusts that have already had Cerner Millennium installed, and to put Cerner into four more acute trusts.

In December, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust became the first of the 25 RiO sites to go-live.

Links: BT

CSE Healthcare Systems