Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust chooses McKesson cardiology to streamline cardiac services
McKesson’s cardiovascular information solution will improve hospital efficiencies, empower consultants and clinicians with real-time access to key information, and accelerate patient pathways
The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has selected McKesson Cardiology solution to streamline diagnostic and clinical communications across its busy cardiology department where, on average, around 2,500 cath procedures are performed each year in addition to more than 10,000 echocardiograms.
Initially, the Cardiovascular Imaging and Information System (CVIS) will be used by the multidisciplinary cardiology team, which includes eight consultants, three registrars and a number of cath lab nurses, physiologists and radiographers. As the new system beds in and the trust expands its electronic patient record, information within the McKesson system will be made securely accessible across the whole hospital.
“Until now, we have been using multiple systems that are not interoperable with each other, or indeed with the PAS.” said Dr Jon Swinburn, consultant cardiologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The solution provides the entire care team with access to the complete cardiovascular record whenever and wherever it is needed
“As a result there is a lot of duplication and, other than the paper records, there are no co-ordinated, centralised records. We needed a solution that would give the entire care team timely access to all the relevant information that they need and expedite patient care. The McKesson Cardiology solution offers all of the advantages of centralisation, accessibility and interoperability.”
The accessibility of the McKesson CVIS solution will help consultants and clinicians to consolidate patient information that is currently stored on separate hospital systems, such as angio and echo imaging and ECGs, resulting in efficiencies to help accelerate patient pathways within the cardiology service.
McKesson Cardiology is designed from the ground up to bring together all of the information needed into a single platform.
John Neeson, sales manager, said: “Our CVIS is the industry’s only system designed to feature a single database design to support the workflows common with cardiac and peripheral catheterisation, EP and device management, haemodynamic monitoring, echocardiography, vascular ultrasound, nuclear cardiology, ECG management, stress, holter and ambulator BP management. The solution provides the entire care team with access to the complete cardiovascular record whenever and wherever it is needed.”The benefits of the centralised solution for Royal Berkshire are wide ranging, Dr Swinburn said: “The inclusion of the Pacing module will enable the trust to document the implementation of pacemakers, while the tool will also give nurses access to data on the ward.”
As the UK’s best-performing heart attack centre – using Call-to-Balloon times as the gold standard for emergency cardiac care - the hospital will use the CVIS to capture data required for submission to the national registries for such national benchmarking purposes, while the ability to streamline the whole process for patients who have been admitted for invasive diagnostic procedures will be a real benefit.