Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust
The Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust is a major university teaching hospital, providing a wide range of services to the local and wider community.
With 2400 beds, 70 wards and over one million patient attendances every year, the Trust is one of the biggest and busiest in the UK. With a Trust this size and with the increasing need to provide links to Primary Care and other community health services, integrated and streamlined information systems are critical.
The Trust defined its vision of patient-centric information systems to meet the objectives of Electronic Patient Record (EPR) laid out in Britain's Information for Health Strategy and is working with IBA Technologies to achieve EPR objectives and to develop its IT strategy for the future.
The Challenge
In 1990 IT staff at the Southampton University Hospitals Trust realised that their information systems no longer met local healthcare needs. They needed to implement systems that could support the delivery of clinical and support services and meet teaching and research commitments.
At the same time, any systems needed to be cost-effective and affordable within the Trust's limited funds.
To move towards this goal, in 1991 the Trust devleoped a new information strategy, that would be implemented over a seven-to-ten-year period.
The IBA Solution
Over the past eight years, the Trust has put the basic building blocks in place to make its vision a reality. Key to this has been choosing the right IT suppliers with which to work in partnership.
At the very heart of Southampton's strategy was the desire to put the patient at the core of all its information systems.
Southampton went out to open procurement for the PAS (Patient Administration System) and PMI (Patient Master Index) in 1996 and chose IBA Technologies.
Commenting on this decision, Liz Horkin, assistant director Information Management & Technology, said: "In a Trust the size of Southampton, we need to be sure that the systems we implement can scale to meet our needs.
"We were confident that the solution from IBA was scalable and reliable enough to deliver tangible administrative and clinical benefits. Other factos we needed to take into consideration were the ability for the system to be extended beyond our Trust boundaries into Primary Care, whilst remaining reliable and responsive and for the solution to be affordable by the Trust.
"Most importantly, the supplier we chose needed to demonstrate the ability to work as part of our team to ensure the PAS and PMI met user needs. Through the tendering process, IBA demonstrated that is products met these objectives better than any other supplier."
Working in partnership, the Trust and IBA have implemented IBA's Patient Administration System (PAS), with other integrated modules such as Accident & Emergency Management, Theatres Management and Clinical Audit. IBA also implemented an open database from Oracle and and STC Datagate interface engine, to integrate core systems not provided by IBA, such as Pathology and Radiology.
The key issues for Southampton were scalability, reliability and integration. IBA's products, combined with our ability to partner with other best-practice suppliers such as Oracle and STC, could give this mission-critical functionality to the Trust.
Combined with our dedication to basing systems on industry standard open technology, it is IBA's strategy to provide totally integrated, web-enabled solutions.
The web-based solution for the Trust's A&E department is enabling it to deliver wide-ranging clinical benefits. There are currently 7000 users of the IBA Patient Administration System at Southampton, across all disciplines, from doctors and nurses, to administrative and IT staff. Services are delivered to staff accessing 3000 PCs, running over a 4000 endpoint gigabyte network (internally) and over the NHSnet to non-Trust sites. The IT system also provides services to the neighbouring Community Trust and Primary Care Trust.
Benefits
The benefits of IBA's solution have been substantial and have impacted throughout the Trust.
The most important benefits have been the achievement of a single patient index and the ability to integrate all administrative information about patients, including information held in A&E and Theatre, across the Trust.
For an organisation of this size this has been an immense task, but the solution from IBA is helping to ensure that patients enjoy a smooth journey through the hospital.
Liz Horkin stated: "Previously, data on a patient was collected at various points in different Trust departments. There was no way that the information could be shared between these isolated pools of data and this resulted in huge amounts of wasted time and effort, as well as providing numerous opportunities for mistakes.
"Now, although some working practice charges still need to be facilitated in certain areas of the Trust, patients can be tracked seamlessly throughout their stay in hospital, enabling the staff to provide a better standard of care and more patient-centric service."
By providing staff at the Trust with more reliable and up-to-date information, the ability to conduct comprehensive clinical audit services has also increased.
Liz Horkin commented: "We are working towards an integrated environment to help support clinical governance and a seamless and integrated information system underpins this.
"Over the last eight years, we have undertaken a major series of procurements and implementations, all working towards the single, integrated goal. We have put the building blocks in place to meet the Trust's requirements and the national targets in information for Health."