Ealing improves discharge with SRC

Ealing Hospital NHS Trust in London is using a electronic discharge summary solution from SRC to deliver discharge summaries to GPs within 24 hours of patients leaving hospital.

SRC says the eDS system is in use in 15 wards and clinical areas and was rolled out in just two months. The company worked with Bluewire Technologies, hospital clinicians and pharmacists to tailor the system to the trust’s workflows and medicines management requirements.

The system is integrated with the hospital’s patient administration system, and updates patient records using HL7 messaging. The interface means that discharge summaries can be produced quickly, with all the required patient data available through a single application.

When patients are discharged, a completed summary is automatically sent via a secure link to the patient’s GP practice, while patients are given a printed copy that includes information about their medications.

The Multilex Drugs Dictionary from First Databank is built into the system, and has been configured to limit prescribing rights for certain drugs, pre-populate dosages for common medications, and prevent medicines being prescribed ahead of a discharge assessment.

Once an assessment has taken place, ward-based nurses can track the progress of prescriptions to further streamline the discharge process.

Chief pharmacist Stuart Richardson said: “Prescriptions are now legible and clear and are being written to a standard format that complies with the contract agreed with our commissioner.

“Patient safety is a huge component of this, and it has been an interesting and enjoyable process developing the medicines management features.”

Kevin Connolly, director of ICT at the hospital, said: “This has been a major strategic project. The pace of implementation has been swift, but this has not compromised on attention to detail, nor commitment to delivering a robust end-product.

“[Since go-live] we have not encountered any significant issues, nor complaints among clinical staff about the burdens introduced by a new computer system.

“This should not be under-estimated. It is the pay-off for the very detailed initial process design work undertaken by our clinical and pharmacy leads, expertly guided by the SRC and Bluewire Technologies implementation lead.”

Link: SRC