IMS MAXIMS releases improved version of open source EPR
New features included following deployment at Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
This week sees the release of the latest version of the IMS MAXIMS open source electronic patient record (EPR), openMAXIMS, which includes all of the enhancements made for Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.
Taunton was the first trust to go live with the software and has been working closely with IMS MAXIMS on the new functionality.
The upgraded code is now available on the open source website (GitHub), with many new features, including clinical triage of referrals to direct patients to the appropriate service and care according to clinical priority, and pre-operative assessment for theatres, ensuring patients are fit and suitable for surgery.
The IMS MAXIMS open source EPR was first made available to the NHS in June 2014 and is available for anyone worldwide to download and use for free. The ambition being to offer more flexibility and choice to trusts and increase the number of users that could help develop the code, for the benefit of the wider NHS and elsewhere. Eighteen months on, there is 50% more source code offering users more functionality than ever before.
Paul Cooper, research director at IMS MAXIMS said: “The open source approach is really maturing in the NHS, as trusts look to achieve value for money when procuring EPRs.
“This release demonstrates our commitment to the ongoing development of the solution. NHS trusts looking to adopt openMAXIMS will benefit greatly from the developments made for Taunton, whose clinicians were involved throughout the design of the system, ensuring it suited the trust’s clinical needs and processes across A&E, theatres, outpatients and the hospital’s 30 wards.”
IMS MAXIMS has also contracted with Ramsay Health Care, Wye Valley NHS Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, to help deploy and maintain openMAXIMS. Further updates of the code are in the pipeline as major milestones are reached across customer deployments.
Cooper said: “We have not only added new features to this release, but have made numerous enhancements throughout the entire code base. We are continuing to develop the software to meet the additional requirements of phase two at Taunton, Ramsay and Wye Valley, all of which will be going live in 2016.”
Dr Chris Swinburn, clinical lead for the project at Taunton, said last September that the trust had ‘developed a robust EPR system that can be replicated in other hospitals. This can deliver wide-reaching benefits across the NHS’.