Hull and East Yorkshire takes Lorenzo

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust is the second trust to commit to take CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record system under a new agreement between the company and the Department of Health.

The trust, which currently uses the iSoft PatientCentre system, hopes Lorenzo will help eliminate paper records, facilitate agile working, support collaborative working and share information more effectively between clinical staff.

Martyn Smith, director of IT and innovation at Hull and East Yorkshire, said: “The Lorenzo deployment model allows us to be bold and to deploy a full like-for-like service at the earliest opportunity, including electronic ordering, electronic reporting and emergency care”.

"We know that this is a hugely significant step for us and for the patients we treat. Of course there are risks, but those aren’t unique to Lorenzo. Creating a sustainable deployment model is going to be critical.”

In November 2011 the trust board approved an “ambitious” IM&T Strategy, committing to spend more than £20m on new systems and infrastructure over the next five years.

Smith said implementation of the EPR will be at the heart of this new IT programme and the trust will take on the “full suite of Lorenzo clinicals.”

“We are engaged on a detailed evaluation of Lorenzo and its ability to support our plans for connecting patient information systems across the local health community, reducing the reliance on the paper record,” he said.

“We are working with our neighbours, Humber NHS Trust, to build on their success with Lorenzo and together we aim to create a single unified record as soon as possible”

Hull and East Yorkshire is rolling out CSC’s e-whiteboards across its wards and intends to implement a clinical portal, e-Casenotes and an e-Observations system as part of the path towards a fully digital record.

Mark Simpson, chief clinical information officer and emergency department consultant, said the trust’s £7m expansion of its emergency department made taking Lorenzo a logical step.

“Having an emergency care module within Lorenzo allows us to exploit that fully integrated care record and avoids the need to procure a separate emergency department system,” he said.

“The fundamental aim of our IM&T Strategy is to give more control to our clinicians over the information they receive and the decisions they take. We want to enable and enhance clinical practice through the use of modern technology,” Simpson added.

A trust statement says it has been working closely with CSC over the past 18 months.

It is planning to take its full business case to the trust board in March. Subject to trust board approval, it will then seek formal approval from the DH to proceed with the Lorenzo deployment.

The trust will also explore the possibility of implementing the Lorenzo e-prescribing module once it has been successfully deployed at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.

The interim deal between CSC and the DH announced last September removed the company’s exclusive rights to be the only provider of clinical IT systems in the North, Midlands and East.

Under the new arrangement the NHS is not subject to “trust volume commitments” and CSC will deliver the system “based on demand from individual NHS trusts.”

Trusts wishing to take Lorenzo are able to access centralised support and funding for up to five years from implementation.

Ehealth Insider exclusively reported last year that the first ten trusts to take on Lorenzo under the new interim agreement would also receive a signing-on bonus of £1m each for implementation expenses, in addition to £4m that will be available for deployment and training costs.

Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was the first trust to commit to take Lorenzo under the new agreement last September.