Pilot Scheme at Furness General Hospital Set To Bring The ‘Paper-Less’ Hospital One Step Closer

A pilot scheme is taking place this month in the oncology outpatient department at Furness General Hospital. The scheme will see a paper-based system replaced with a new more efficient, labour saving ‘electronic requesting and resulting functionality’ as part of the Trust’s ongoing Electronic Patient Record (EPR) programme. 

Tony Crick, Lead Healthcare Professional and Deputy Divisional General Manager for Core Clinical Services, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT), said: “It was not possible to get rid of paper altogether as part of phase 1 but this is a major step towards our ambition of becoming truly ‘Paper-Less’ with electronic requesting.  We have seen significant benefits already within the laboratory and the roll out within inpatients has demonstrated that the main systems used within the hospital are fully integrated.”

Sandra Richardson, Project Manager for the rollout of requesting and resulting across inpatients, UHMBT, added: “This is a very exciting development with the potential to transform the way we work, providing clinicians with instant access to much better information that will help us provide the very best care for our patients.” 

Aaron Cummins, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Finance, UHMBT, said: “Using technology can really help us deliver better patient services and reduce the time spent by staff on paperwork. We want the EPR to make staffs working lives easier and in doing so give them more opportunities to deliver care in more effective ways for our patients.”

Over the past ten months, UHMBT has attracted the attention of national and international colleagues for its work on the clinically-led EPR. Back in the summer the Trust’s Emergency Departments(ED) took a major step towards becoming ‘Paperlite’ by removing the paper CAS Card that was used in ED and replacing it with an Electronic CAS Chart available within the EPR.