Royal Liverpool live with CSC portal

Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust has gone live with its clinical portal.

The trust was the first to sign a deal with CSC for its clinical information portal, back in November 2010.

CSC has worked with Carefx, a subsidiary of Harris, on the project, and the portal has now been deployed across seven therapeutic areas, including orthopaedics, cardiology, diabetes and haematology.

It is providing clinicians with instant access to a range of patient information, including test results, medical images and correspondence.

A proof of concept evaluation last year recorded benefits including an average reduction in the length of clinic times by 30 minutes, improved patient services, safety and savings in staff time and resources.

James Norman, the trust’s IT director, said: “The portal presents data from underlying systems, which the clinicians are familiar with, in an easy ‘iGoogle’ style format.

“Training has been quick and simple and uptake by the clinicians has been astonishing.

“The proof of concept exceeded all expectations and we are now beginning to see those benefits being realised across the trust.”

Because the portal has created a bridge between existing applications, the trust has been able to extend the life of existing systems that might otherwise have had to be upgraded or replaced.

The portal is currently supporting access to data from systems such as orders and results, x-rays, clinical letters, GP referral letters and pre-operative assessments, with more systems being integrated in the next phases.

Tony Bell, the trust’s chief executive said: “The clinical portal is the keystone in helping to lay solid foundations for the trust’s future.

"It is creating an effective and efficient way to reduce costs and administration, while speeding up and increasing the throughput of patients and aiding service transformation.

“Not only has the portal allowed us to protect our existing IT investments but it has enabled us to align ourselves with the government’s interoperability agenda ensuring that our systems are future proofed.”

The next stages of the project will extend the clinical portal to wards and emergency departments. In addition, the trust will provide limited access to the system for GPs.