Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) has begun a digital revolution to improve its mental health services.
The organisation has successfully gone live with Carenotes, a leading Electronic Patient Record system (EPR) from Advanced Health & Care.
This next-generation EPR solution went live on 8 September, meeting ambitious delivery targets following completion of a focused two-year project.
The system will enable staff to view patient records and make quicker, more-informed and accurate clinical decisions due to improved data accessibility. Carenotes will also facilitate more-consistent working processes supporting more-efficient and joined up multi-agency working to enhance patient care and satisfaction.
Wendy Wallace, chief executive of the trust, said: “Our ambition is to lead a digital revolution to provide better overall patient care to thousands of people with mental health conditions. By working in partnership with Advanced to meet tight project timescales, we now move this vision closer to reality.
“Our successful ‘go live’ is not only a great achievement for the technical teams, but also for all our staff who have committed to training in the new Carenotes system. I've been particularly impressed by the network of highly-enthusiastic champions that have stepped forward to support their colleagues and the trust. User confidence is one of the keys to a successful transition and we are clearly demonstrating this now.”
Through its pioneering ‘Learn and Lead’ initiative, C&I has now recruited 165 ‘Carenotes Champions’ comprising staff volunteers and representing almost 10% of trust employees. Through this exercise champions are developing their personal skills and management experience.
David Jackland, associate director of ICT at Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, said: “To deliver a project of this scale is a remarkable achievement. Everyone’s considerable efforts have been rewarded.
“C&I looks forward to continuing to work together to deploy the Carenotes mobile product with our partners from Advanced, so that our clinical staff will be able to view patient records from smart devices.”
George Thaw, managing director of Advanced Health & Care, added: “The success of this project is a shining example of a business working in close partnership with an NHS trust to proactively shape the future of technology in healthcare.
“We have formed an excellent relationship with Camden and Islington and are looking forward to continuing to support them to transform mental health services through our leading software.”
