County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust goes paperless with ED solution

Published: 30-May-2013

Trust deploys Ascribe’s Unscheduled Care and Business Intelligence solutions


County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with Ascribe’s Unscheduled Care solution.

The move has enabled the trust to go paperless in the emergency department at the Durham University Hospital site, with the medical and nursing staff recording all their notes into the Ascribe clinical noting module, eNotes, saving time and reducing printing costs. All the nursing observations with calculated MEWS and PEWS scores are part of the electronic nursing record, with charts created within the software. Ascribe has also provided the specialised Business Change consultancy services to support this process.

The first department in a multi-phase project went live with the solution on the same day as its new intake of junior medical staff arrived, ensuring they would develop their clinical experience using the latest technology.

The solution now provides clinicians with a rich clinical information system that tracks patients from their point of first contact through to discharge from the emergency department. The solution is also fully integrated with the trust’s Ascribe PAS, providing full sharing of demographic data between both systems.

The system draws upon clinical and administrative patient data from multiple sources, which is planned to include the Summary Care Record in a later phase.

It captures all clinical aspects of the patient journey and automates the generation of clinical reports, freeing clinicians to focus on providing care.

“Ascribe is delighted that the trust has gone paperless in its emergency department,” said Stephen Critchlow, chief executive of Ascribe. “We believe that providing clinicians with all the relevant information they need is essential to improving care decisions and ultimately improving health outcomes.”

Dr Christopher Burdess, consultant in emergency medicine at the trust, added: “The accurate capture and easy accessing of data relating to each emergency department patient’s visit is vital in assessing our performance and identifying areas and ways in which we can improve our service to patients. Electronic documentation is critical in ensuring the clinician has both the ability to accurately record and immediately access vital clinical information.”

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