Musgrove Park Hospital sets its sights on open source ePMA

Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton has partnered up with a number of organisations to deliver an open source e-prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) solution.

The hospital, which is part of Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, has joined forces with CGI, Marand and the Apperta Foundation.

CGI has been drafted in to deliver Marand’s OPENeP system while the Apperta Foundation will provide support for clinicians.

OPENeP is built on Marand’s Think!EHR Platform, which is a vendor-free solution for managing electronic health record data.

This means data can be shared and received, regardless of the supplier.

The solution is also expected to integrate with the trust’s electronic patient record (EPR) which is supplied by IMS Maxims.

It is expected to take one year to implement the solution with the hospital aiming to go live on 1 June, Tech Market View has reported.

To start with, ePMA will be introduced to one ward, but it is then expected to be introduced on three to four more departments within two years.

The introduction of the ePMA solution is part of the trust’s global digital exemplar (GDE) programme.

David Chalkley, CCIO at the trust, said: “We are pleased to partner with CGI for the implementation of the Marand OPENeP e-prescribing and medicines administration solution.

“We believe that this world class application will deliver significant patient safety gains, improve patient outcomes, support the delivery of better care and lower care costs.

“CGI has the experience, knowledge and expertise to support us delivering this key project and realising our global digital exemplar vision for an ePMA integrated with the electronic patient record.”

Slovenian company Marand has supported a number of other NHS organisations including University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, which was named the first NHS trust to begin implementation of an open source, open standards-based electronic prescribing system in September 2017.

Anže Droljc, head of clinical applications at Marand, said: “Musgrove Park Hospital is trying to be different from other GDE trusts because they’re going with what we call a post-modern approach. They will combine different vendors and different solutions to help them with their digital transformation.”

In February 2018, then-health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged £75m to accelerate the adoption of e-prescribing in hospitals, arguing such systems help reduce medication error. The organisations to have won funding are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.