East Lancashire hospitals go live with Ascribe ePrescribing and Medicines Administration solution

Ascribe has announced the successful ‘go live’ of the Ascribe Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) system at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.

The deployment marks the final stage in the trust’s strategic partnership with Ascribe to implement a fully-integrated pharmacy solution through trust-wide electronic prescribing.

With Ascribe Web Pharmacy and eMedicines Management already in place, the move to ePrescribing is the final stage that will enable a single workflow of information from the prescriber to the dispensary staff, using a single patient record which eliminates the need to transcribe routine medications and provides decision support to clinicians.

Ascribe’s Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) ensures that prescriptions are accessible at all times by clinicians, ensuring patients receive the correct medication, avoiding accidental harm through manual prescription, which increases patient safety.

To assist with the associated cultural, IT and process changes a project such as ePMA presents, East Lancashire utilised Ascribe’s business transformation services to help with the transition.

Ruth Townson, senior pharmacist at the trust, said: “The team at Ascribe have been really helpful in engaging key stakeholders in the trust throughout the project, from implementing Electronic Medicines Management last year to Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration this year.”

East Lancashire has used tablet computers on the ward since the implementation of eMM last year. Townson said: “The tablets have generated a lot of interest throughout the trust. Pharmacy were the first department to be using mobile technology in clinical areas. It’s great to be at the forefront of technology in the trust as the technology has been established for over a year this will help us moving forward with electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration.”

Neil Fletcher, chief pharmacist, added: “Ascribe has helped us gain trust-wide engagement, as Electronic Prescribing is trustwide; it’s not just for the pharmacy department. The ePMA solution will deliver benefits including integration with trust wide systems, cost savings from drug spend, reduction in time spent in the dispensary and more time at patient bedside, reduction in errors of handwritten notes, achieving a paperless status, all of which will ultimately help us deliver better patient care.”