Customer stories
ePrescribing: transforming the trust
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Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust (Lancashire) wanted an ePrescribing solution that would improve quality, patient safety and deliver an electronic medicine management process.
Optum's (formerly EMIS) Business Transformation team worked with Lancashire to help develop a business case for ePrescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA). This involved running a number of transformation workshops with the objective of identifying a strategy, the predicted benefits and vital factors for the strategy’s success.
Preparing for ePMA
In order to properly prepare for the implementation of solutions such as ePMA not only does the technology in place need to be sufficient, but also the hospital staff need to be engaged and ready for the change.
Having clinical engagement has been key and we have been successful in having the input of clinicians in the Trust who are fully behind the project. This will help significantly when we get to the implementation stage.”
Identifying the benefits
The trust consulted with a multidisciplinary group of staff to identify the benefits of ePMA that would drive the project. Having chosen a group from across the hospital, not only were the ideas presented more inclusive, but the amount of engagement with the project was increased.
The driving benefits of the project identified were:
- Increased patient safety
- Improved patient care delivery
- Improved staff utilisation.
To ensure these benefits were achievable, the next stage of workshops defined the critical success factors of implementing ePMA.
“The critical success factors work we did with EMIS (now Optum) really helped us build adequate resource, both IT and clinical, into our business case. It identified some key areas that would need to be considered which helped us cost the project more effectively.”
Securing funding
Amanda Parkinson commented “When we presented our business case to the funding board, at the end the chair asked the panel if they had any questions, which they didn’t. They were very impressed with our preparation.
The workshops ran by EMIS (now Optum) were extremely helpful in putting the business case together and enabled us to gain a fuller picture of the entire Trust and the requirementspharmacy but throughout the organisation.”