The move is part of the trust's commitment to ensuring safe and effective care at the 367-bed Harrogate District Hospital. The ePMA solution will integrate with the trust's existing IT infrastructure including PAS, laboratory and eDischarge systems to further promote the timely and accurate sharing of medicines related information within the trust and with GPs.

"We are dedicated to making the safety of our patients and the quality of care our highest priority," said Andrew Alldred, Harrogate's director of pharmacy. "With the proliferation of new drugs, many with similar sounding names, prescribing has become a hugely complex task that is fraught with risk. Paper-based medicines systems can no longer be relied on to meet the demanding needs of a modern and clinically complex hospital environment."

"With research suggesting that at least ten percent of medication orders contain errors, costing the NHS in excess of £500 million a year, there has never been a greater need for ePMA solutions to help improve the timeliness, appropriateness and accuracy of the prescribing and administration of medicines," said Adrian Stevens, managing director of iSOFT's UK and Ireland business. "Our solution has been shown to greatly reduce adverse medication errors and improve the efficiency of healthcare services."

Harrogate is the fourth NHS trust to become an early adopter of iSOFT's ePMA solution after Pennine Acute, Stockport and Leicester. "Harrogate is a welcome addition to the early adopter programme," Stevens said. "The trust has already achieved an impressive range of meaningful clinical engagement and we are looking forward to continuing our strategic relationship to deliver real benefits for the trust’s staff and its patients."

iSOFT ePMA provides new opportunities to improve the communication of medicines related information between medical, nursing and clinical pharmacy teams. Advanced drug formulary management underpinned by clinical and workflow based decision support provides a highly effective environment to help improve a hospital's performance in relation to medicines. In-built reporting and data analysis tools provide executive and management visibility of performance to help proactively address areas of concern or promote good practice.

iSOFT ePMA is shown to halve adverse medication errors at hospitals in Australia and New Zealand. These errors can prolong a patient's stay, which in turn blocks hospital beds and increases costs.

Related news articles:

• iSOFT's Profile

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