Wirral first on Cerner Clinical Research

Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has become the first NHS organisation in the UK to start making use of Cerner Clinical Research.

The Cerner PowerTrials solution facilitates clinical trials by integrating research processes into the workflow of clinicians who use the Cerner Millennium clinical information system. Wirral is currently preparing to implement Millennium in 2010.

In conjunction with Millennium, Wirral will also use Cerner’s PowerTrials module to connect clinicians, site researchers and patients to improve access to prospective research studies.

Use of Cerner PowerTrials will help Wirral to replace current paper-based clinical trials. Wirral says it expects the new system to deliver significant value for patients, researchers and clinical discovery. PowerTrials will be used by more than 50 clinicians and researchers in the trust.

By using the Cerner PowerTrials solution, the trust will be able to provide clinicians, site researchers and patients with increased opportunities to contribute to the development of new therapies supporting a safe and effective research environment which leverages evidence based knowledge.

Integrating research processes into the workflow of the Cerner Millennium clinical information system will facilitate communication between clinicians and site researchers at Wirral.

Clinicians and patients will have access to information about prospective research being conducted at Wirral and for patients who choose to enroll in a trial, their consent information and enrollment status will be readily accessible by all clinicians.

"This integrated approach will provide more opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials, enhance patient safety, and streamline research processes," said Luke Readman, director of information at the trust.

"Wirral and Cerner share a common culture around clinical innovation and benefits realisation," said Donald Trigg, Cerner vice president and managing director in the UK.

"Wirral’s access to the full Millennium solution suite, coupled with their use of our event-based deployment methodology MethodM, were the twin catalysts for the first-of-type partnership around the Cerner PowerTrials solution. We are confident that it will deliver significant value for money."

"This is a major undertaking for our organisation, which coincides with restructuring of our outpatient clinics, the establishment of a new data centre and the implementation of Cerner Millennium health information technology," said Gary Doherty, chief operating officer and deputy chief executive for the trust.

The Wirral’s Cerner Millennium implementation will begin with a suite of clinical solutions designed to provide vital patient information to clinicians at the right place and the right time.

The trust will be implementing clinical solutions for outpatient clinician documentation, ordering and results viewing for the A&E, documentation and scheduling for theatres, PowerTrials for clinical trial screening and management, clinical coding, case note tracking and administrative and clinical interfacing. The Wirral will also be implementing Cerner solutions for patient administration.

The Wirral deployment is using the MethodM methodology during implementation in order to ensure cost effective and predictable outcomes.