Ealing Hospital NHS Trust in London is using SRC’s electronic Discharge Summary (eDS) Solution to deliver discharge summaries within 24 hours of patients leaving hospital.
The solution, which was rolled out across the Trust in under two months, has enabled it to improve patient safety and experience using built-in medicine management tools (such as the Multilex Drugs Dictionary).
Clinicians at the hospital complete discharge summaries electronically to be authorised by pharmacists. On patient discharge, the completed summary is sent automatically and securely to the patient’s GP practice. Patients leave the hospital with a printed copy that explains their medication regime.
SRC implemented the eDS Solution in partnership with clinical software specialists Bluewire Technologies, working with the hospital’s senior pharmacists and clinicians to ensure that it fitted hospital workflows and to tailor the medicines management software.
“The system has now been live for over a month and in that time we have not encountered any significant issues, nor complaints amongst clinical staff about the burdens introduced by a new computer system,” said Kevin Connolly, Director of ICT at Ealing Hospital.
This, he added, was “the pay-off for the very detailed initial process design work undertaken by our clinical and pharmacy leads, expertly guided by the SRC and Bluewire Technologies implementation lead.”
Chris Hart, CEO of SRC, commented: “Our eDS solution, part of the SRC Clinical Information Toolkit, is unique in its ability to reduce production and delivery timescales as well as significantly improving the quality and content of discharge summaries. We are delighted by the successful and rapid rollout which the joint project team has achieved at the Ealing Hospital NHS Trust.”
SRC, a leading UK provider of clinical information solutions, has partnered with global technology providers such as Olympus and Philips.