The largest healthcare organisation in the country, Barts Health NHS Trust has recently been awarded a prestigious technology and transformation award, EHealth Insider’s ‘Digital NHS Trust of the Year’ for excellence in IT innovation and e-health.
This year, the trust implemented a single electronic health record (EHR) across its six hospital sites and successfully implemented the UK’s first Cerner Health Information Exchange. The system allows the bidirectional stream of data to flow between GP systems and Barts Health’s single EHR and sets the standard for the future of all digital NHS trusts. The Cerner Millennium EHR digitally integrates departments and care teams to a shared single system that consolidates and accumulates all information related to patients’ lifetime interactions with services and staff.
Barts Health NHS Trust informatics strategy is based on three strategic themes: ‘Single systems’ (Cerner Millennium across all hospitals); ‘Connectedness’ (with hospitals, local partners, GPs and community services) and ‘Big Data’ (using technology to drive innovation in healthcare service provision and Population Health). They have also publicly stated their position to work towards the government’s Paperless Agenda’ and are working to deliver the first steps in a two-year informatics plan to connect the trust with the local health economy.
As strong believers in clinically led innovation, Barts Health NHS Trust appointed a body of five clinical leaders in 2013 to drive the implementation of Cerner Millennium across the trust’s six sites and community services. These individuals comprise a formidable team that has leveraged IT to complement clinical practice.
“Our vision over the next few years is to use electronic health records to provide safer and more integrated care for the future,” said Luke Readman, Chief Information Officer, Barts Health NHS Trust. “This award recognises our achievements as an organisation in working together with our local health economy. Digital health is moving at great speed across the world and we, together with the East London health system, are in a great position to provide the best care for our patients and lead the e-health information revolution in the UK”.
Commenting on the award, Emil Peters, Vice President and Managing Director, Cerner Limited said: “Working with a trust as innovative as Barts Health NHS Trust is a real pleasure for Cerner and this award is very much deserved. With projects such as Health Information Exchange, paper-lite departments, Community Paperless and Remote video consultations, Barts positions itself a step ahead of the game and offers better and clearer level of service and care to its community and patients”.
