Low use of Lorenzo in Bury

A recent board paper published by NHS Bury has said that as many as 30% of patient contacts are not being recorded in Lorenzo, even though the system has been in place for 15 months.

The ‘Lorenzo Regional Care – data quality action plan’ says “reports received to date indicate that data recording has only reached 70% of expected activity levels, suggesting that approximately 30% of patient contacts are not being record on LRC.”

The provider arm of the primary care trust has had ongoing problems with reporting functionality since it went live with the iSoft system delivered by local service provider CSC in November 2009.

Last year, it reported that it was having difficulties monitoring performance and the 18 week referral to treatment time target. This led to delays in creating a business management centre for the provider services and the deployment of further functionality.

Although issues seem to have improved, the document continues to refer to a number of “teething problems have been experienced in respect of reporting functionality.”

It says that although six out of ten back end reports have been provided and are being quality checked, four are still outstanding, including bed day’s occupancy, clinic session capacity dietics, clinic session capacity podiatry, and clinical session capacity treatment room.

The paper adds that prior to the implementation of Lorenzo, Bury was utilising iSoft’s iPM system, for which, full data compliance had been achieved combined with a high-level of data quality.

When asked about the continued problems with the system, a spokesperson for NHS Bury, told eHealth Insider: “We are working closely with staff to increase the amount of activity entered into Lorenzo. We have a number of tools to monitor and address areas where the number of contacts recorded does not meet forecasted levels.

She added that the number of contacts being recorded is continuing to increase and is now at around 80% of all patient contacts. She also said that most of the reporting extracts have now been delivered but that bed day’s occupancy was still outstanding.

NHS Bury also stressed that despite the Department of Health saying that CSC is in breach of its LSP contract for failing to implement a remedial plan to deploy Lorenzo at four key milestone sites in the North, Midlands and East of England, it is committed to the use of Lorenzo Regional Care and the future development of the system.