Healthcare IT news in brief

Lorenzo go-live delay blamed on centre

A Midlands trust has delayed deployment of a Lorenzo electronic patient by two months because of an eight-week hold-up in central approval.

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust will now go-live with the EPR in May, rather than March,

In its November board papers, the trust said the Department of Health and HSCIC (now NHS Digital) had delayed the approval process which “results in revised timeframe of May 2017, rather than March 2017”.

The board papers said “the Trust has finally received approval from the Department of Health in respect of funding” for the EPR.

North Staffordshire is deploying the EPR as part of its ‘Raising our Service Excellence’ or ROSE programme.

Digital Health News reported in July last that North Staffordshire was had initial approval from the Department of Health to deploy the Lorenzo EPR.

‘Innovation’ exchange developed to accelerate tariff tech

West Midlands Academic Health Science Networks is hosting an online health innovation exchange designed to promote collaboration on technology and innovation supported by central tariffs.

In November, NHS England announced new tariffs would be available for trusts deploying medical technology and apps to meet six specific clinical needs. These included helping woman giving birth, patients with chronic lung problems, men having urological surgery, and acutely ill inpatients.

England’s 15 AHSNs have agreed to actively support local health organisations to deploy the tariff technologies. The exchange provides an interactive platform for anyone to share ideas, build groups and networks, focused on making the best use of the tariffs.

West Midlands AHSN commercial director Tony Davis said the new tariff “will remove the need for multiple price negotiations between providers and suppliers, overcoming financial and procurement barriers and allowing NHS England and the Department of Health to negotiate national ‘bulk buy’ discounts on behalf of hospitals, GPs and patients.”

Wales trust gets £3.5 million wi-fi

Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board will get nearly £3.5 million to deploy wi-fi across its five hospital sites.

Welsh health secretary Vaughan Gething announced funding for the health board as part of the government’s digital health and social care strategy.

The money will provide wi-fi for all of the board’s staff through the Welsh Clinical Portal and free wi-fi for patients and visitors at all the hospital board’s site. The board already offers free wi-fi at its main hospital, Singleton, but this will now be extended to four community sites.

Summary care records now used by half of all community pharmacies.

Half of England’s community pharmacies now make use of summary care records, gaining access to key clinical information about patients.

The summary care record is an electronic record derives from information on a patient’s GP record, that is then available to other clinicians involved in that patient’s care.

The record is already ubiquitous among GPs but in the past year NHS Digital has been pushing for community pharmacies to get access.

The agency said by the December last year 6000 pharmacies had access to SCR, with some accessing records up to 50 times a week. From April, NHS England’s new Quality Payment Scheme will measure community pharmacies’ access to SCR and link their performance to incentive funding.