Royal Derby Hospital deploys DXC Technology’s Lorenzo ePMA

Published: 4-Apr-2019

Rollout helps improve patient safety while reducing pressure on staff


DXC Technology is collaborating with Royal Derby Hospital on an initiative that will improve prescribing, enhancing patient safety while reducing pressure on staff.

E-prescribing and medicines administration, or ePMA, is part of a much-larger hospital digitisation programme in Derby. underpinned by DXC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record (EPR) system.

As a next-generation EPR, Lorenzo is both interoperable and expandable, and is designed as the heart of a best-of-breed healthcare architecture.

Deployment of the ePMA component of Lorenzo has already started at the Derbyshire Children’s Hospital and will extend to all inpatient areas, replacing an outdated system.

Staff will benefit from a much-more-intuitive, mature and connected system, configured around their workflow. This will better guide their decisions and alert them to real risks

It will better alert doctors to genuine prescribing dangers and electronically link patient information and best practice to prescribing decisions.

Debbie Loke, deputy chief information officer at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said: “Enabling safer, faster and more-informed prescribing for busy doctors and nurses and the patients they look after is a core ambition in our transition to Lorenzo ePMA.

“Unlike most hospitals embarking on digitisation programmes with the Lorenzo EPR, electronic prescribing is not new for us. However, staff will benefit from a much-more-intuitive, mature and connected system, configured around their workflow. This will better guide their decisions and alert them to real risks.”

The new ePMA system will sit alongside several specialist prescribing systems used in areas such as oncology and critical care and will integrate with crucial patient information held in the trust’s EPR, facilitating suggestions and alerts based on an individual patient’s circumstances.

Matt Elliott, the pharmacist responsible for overseeing ePMA systems at the trust, said: “This is about helping to guide prescribers – giving them suggestions based on the best practice, the latest drug prices, clinical guidance, prescribing policy, and the context of a patient’s history.

“Our staff are already familiar with the typical benefits of electronic prescribing, such as having access to information in different locations, legibility or being alerted to patient allergies.

“We now want to go much further with Lorenzo, pre-populating the system with common doses and using relevant linguistics so prescriptions can be issued quickly and easily.

Digital technology has the power to transform care and improve safety in the increasingly-pressured environments faced by healthcare professionals in NHS hospitals

“Linking to the EPR will mean prescribers have drug orders, lab tests, drug administration, and patient information all in one place and they can benefit from pro-active suggestions for patients with specific conditions and comorbidities.”

And Colin Henderson, director of healthcare and life sciences at DXC Technology, added: “Digital technology has the power to transform care and improve safety in the increasingly-pressured environments faced by healthcare professionals in NHS hospitals.

“The work at Derby is a great example of taking established technology and configuring it to real clinical workflows.

“There is clearly strong commitment from hospital leadership, digital specialists and healthcare professionals to ensure technology provides the meaningful insights clinicians need to deliver the best outcomes for patients.”

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