Integrated medicines management system for Winchester hospital

April 2007

In a nutshell
Organisation:	Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust.
Problem:	Winchester wanted to progress from their existing electronic prescribing system to a successful hospital-wide electronic prescribing and medication administration system (EPMA) at its 450-bed Royal Hampshire County Hospital.
Solution:	An electronic prescribing and medication administration system combined with the Trust’s existing pharmacy management system.
Product:	JAC Computer Services.
Benefits:	Hospital-wide sharing of critical patient and drug information, improving patient safety and clinical backup for staff. An advanced yet easy-to-use clinical system that requires very little staff training.

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust has recently become the first UK trust to install a second-generation electronic prescribing and medication administration system (EPMA).

The installation — at the Trust’s Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester — forms part of the Trust’s replacement of its existing integrated hospital information system (HIS) in parallel with other systems being supplied by the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Picture of hands The Hampshire Partnership Trust, which has several inpatient wards on the Winchester site, has also been part of the implementation.

JAC Computer Services’ Electronic Prescribing and Medication Administration, together with the hospital’s existing JAC Pharmacy Management module now provide an integrated system that manages the entire cycle, from prescribing, clinical verification and supply to bedside administration of medication by nurses. Ward-based staff now use mobile computers on the Trust’s wireless network to prescribe and administer medicines at the bedside.

The system also incorporates decision support from First Data Bank Europe (FDBE), which provides real-time alerts warning of potential medical errors due to allergies or specific drug combinations.

“Having been a long-term user of electronic prescribing we are acutely aware of the importance of these systems”, said Peter Knight, Managing Director of Clinical Support and Asset Management at the Trust.

“The new system uses mobile terminals to facilitate online prescribing and drug administration, which will further help our clinical staff in the complex world of medication management.”

“Staff find the system easy to use, and like the screen design because so much information can be seen at once”, said Joyce Bould, clinical lead on the project: “Clinically, this system gives us what we have wanted for years — prescribing charts on screen, clinical checking and quick and easy access to patient information. Staff are also able to use the system effectively after relatively little training, which is an added benefit.

“The hospital already used an electronic prescribing system, so we had to use a ‘big bang’ implementation strategy and run two electronic systems for a time. Careful planning and project management, however, meant that we were able to go live with the system in only four days. Having experienced users helped enormously, as did the positive attitude of staff, but the attention to detail in the run-up to go-live was equally important.”

“Electronic prescribing is used in less than 5% of hospitals worldwide”, said Robert Tysall-Blay, Chief Executive of Essex-based JAC Computer Services Ltd. “The fact that Winchester was the first trust in the UK to implement electronic prescribing, and one of its hospitals is now the first site in the UK to replace an existing electronic prescribing system should not go unrecognised. The deployment took just six months from contract signature to ‘go live’, demonstrating that complex and advanced clinical systems can be implemented relatively rapidly.”

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