Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust Goes Live with Clinical Portal

The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust has announced the go-live of its clinical portal across the trust. The portal will allow vital patient information, stored on a variety of systems, to be called up in a single view and in real-time reducing the length of clinic times and improving patient care and services.

The portal has been deployed across seven therapeutic areas including orthopaedics, cardiology, diabetes and haematology and is already providing clinicians with instant access to a range of patient data including test results, medical images and correspondence.

CSC has collaborated with Carefx, a subsidiary of Harris and leading interoperability platform provider, to deploy the portal. The organisations have worked closely with clinicians at the trust to tailor the portal to their requirements. Chris Walker, trauma and orthopaedic consultant at the trust, said: "The portal gives clinicians an electronic patient record which provides us with a simple, clear and instant view of the essential information we need, on a single screen. This is already bringing benefits to both the patients and clinicians as it ensures we have access to the correct patient information when we need it, before, during and after a consultation or procedure. In addition, less time is wasted trying to sort through and decipher paper notes.

"We are now able to assemble and present the information from the portal in a format that works for us, creating an interface which is clinician-friendly and highly flexible."

The trust decided to deploy the clinical portal following a successful proof of concept (PoC) evaluation last year, which showed major benefits including an average reduction in the length of clinic times by 30 minutes, improved patient services, safety and savings in staff time and resources. Following the PoC, clinicians were actively asking the trust's IT department how quickly they could gain access to the portal to experience further benefits.

James Norman, the trust's IT director, said: "The portal presents data from underlying systems, which the clinicians are familiar with, in an easy 'iGoogle' style format so training has been quick and simple and uptake by the clinicians has been astonishing.

"The proof of concept exceeded all expectations in terms of the availability, speed, performance of the portal as well as the quality of the data integrity and we are now beginning to see those benefits being realised across the trust."

In addition to the clinical benefits, the portal has created a bridge between existing applications, which is enabling the trust to extend the life of existing systems that might otherwise need to be upgraded or replaced. The portal is currently supporting access to data from systems such as orders and results, x-rays, clinical letters, GP referral letters and pre-operative assessments, with more systems being integrated in the next phases.

Tony Bell, the trust's Chief Executive, said: "Never before has there been more focus on the importance of improving patient care while simultaneously making efficiency savings. The clinical portal is the keystone in helping lay solid foundations for the trust's future creating an effective and efficient way to reduce costs and administration, while speeding up and increasing the throughput of patients and aiding service transformation.

"Not only has the portal allowed us to protect our existing IT investments but it has enabled us to align ourselves with the government's interoperability agenda ensuring that our systems are future proofed."

The organisations will continue to work collaboratively to extend the clinical portal to the wards, and emergency departments. In addition, the trust will provide limited access to the system for GPs to reduce delays in informing family doctors about any interventions to support the delivery of seamless care.

About Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust
The trust is among the largest hospital trusts in the north of England with an annual budget of over £400 million, and 5,600 directly contracted staff. In 2009-10 it saw 567,683 in its outpatient department, 88,000 emergency patients and 86,000 day case admissions. The trust provides general hospital services and emergency care to the local community including a full range of medical, surgical, diagnostic, rehabilitation and therapy services. These include several nationally and internationally recognised services such as ophthalmology, hepatobilliary, surgery, gastroenterology and pathology. It is one of the top 20 teaching trusts in the country.

About CSC
CSC is a global leader in providing technology-enabled business solutions and services. Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., CSC has approximately 97,000 employees and reported revenue of $16.2 billion for the 12 months ended September 30, 2011.

About Harris Corporation
Carefx is a subsidiary of Harris Corporation, an international communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets in more than 150 countries. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $6 billion of annual revenue and about 17,000 employees - including nearly 7,000 engineers and scientists. Harris is dedicated to developing best-in-class assured communications® products, systems, and services.

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