Ascribe announced the order of their electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) solution by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust ("East Lancashire"), together with Business Change Consultancy services to assist with associated cultural, IT and process changes designed to improve patient safety and increase operational performance.
The project was supported by the Primary Care Trust's Clinical Commissioning Group as the Ascribe solution will deliver closer integration between primary and secondary care providers and thereby improve patient safety. The solution enables Trust staff to make more informed care decisions when prescribing patients' medications through a secure link to their General Practitioner (GP) held medication records. In addition to this, better quality patient care information will also flow back to patients' GPs through Ascribe's integrated eDischarge Summary, these contain a more richly detailed record of Trust prescribed medication and provide improved quality of continuing care that is essential to GP care management and delivery.
The order marks the latest phase of the Trust's strategic partnership with Ascribe to implement a fully integrated Pharmacy solution. The Trust is one of Ascribe's longest standing customers, having safely used Ascribe Pharmacy departmental systems for over 20 years. Other Ascribe solutions used by East Lancashire include:
- Web Pharmacy
- eMedicines Management
- E-MAT (Medical Equipment Management and Traceability System)
With two major parts of an integrated pharmacy solution already in place (Web Pharmacy and eMedicines Management), ePMA is the final component which will enable a 'single workflow of information' from the prescriber to the dispensary staff, using a single patient record which eliminates the need to transcribe routine medications, and provides decision support to clinicians.
The introduction of ePMA to East Lancashire, a large multi-site trust, will have significant impact on the Trust's clinical processes and staff. As part of this solution, Ascribe will initially provide its business and clinical change consultancy expertise to assist the Trust with agreeing new best practice clinical processes that will be enabled by the ePMA solution. East Lancashire is the first Trust to include Business Change Consultancy services, since Ascribe’s announcement in March 2012 of this new consultancy offering.
Neil Fletcher, Clinical Director of Pharmacy at East Lancashire, commented on the project "The entire Trust will benefit from the ePMA solution by having more integrated systems and improving patient care."
Jonathan Wood, Director of Finance at East Lancashire, commented "With enhanced clinical processes that ePMA will put in place for the Trust, the cost associated with non-value adding activity, such as manual transcription, will be saved by the Trust."
Stephen Critchlow, CEO at Ascribe, commented "We are pleased with that East Lancashire has chosen Ascribe for their electronic prescribing solution. It is a great feeling for the team when our first customer continues to build on a solution which will benefit their carers and staff."
About Ascribe ePMA
Ascribe electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) provides the closed loop of medicines management leading to tighter control of drug budgets, faster discharge turnaround and increased safety.
ePMA enables complex regimens to be prescribed with a single click and supports all forms of UK practice - Independent prescribing, Supplementary prescribing and Patient Group directions. Drug supply requests are instantly communicated for faster turnaround. The prescriptions are coded in such a way that they pass seamlessly to robotic dispensing and manufacturing.
The solution is designed to follow the workflow of clinicians and nurses for prescribing and administration. The system has in-built Medicines Reconciliation and supports clinical screening by pharmacists. The use of Patient's own medication is supported and drug administration can be recorded via touchscreen devices. ePMA provides an end-to-end integrated process with no transcription.
About East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust provides high quality services for the local population of over half a million people across East Lancashire and the surrounding area. The Trust employs 7,000 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work, and treats nearly three quarters of a million patients a year from the most serious of emergencies to planned operations and procedures.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust was formed on the 1st April 2003, following the merger of Blackburn Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Health Care NHS Trust and Burnley Health Care NHS Trust.
About Ascribe
From trust-wide EPR solutions through to individual departmental clinical systems and services, Ascribe is able to deliver IT solutions that cater to all secondary care clinical requirements. Using a professional Consultancy division, Ascribe also delivers a comprehensive range of Integration and Business Intelligence solutions based on Microsoft® & other third party IT suppliers to significantly improve clinical and operational efficiencies, to improve patient safety and reduce operating costs.