Bury outlines scope of Lorenzo R1.9

Tags: Community Connelly iSoft Lorenzo

06 Oct 2009

NHS Bury’s implementation of Lorenzo will change the working practices of 600 of its 800 staff, across 31 community services.

The primary care trust has issued a statement to E-Health Insider that expands on the announcement that it will implement Lorenzo Regional Care Release 1.9 (LRC R1.9) in November, when it will migrate off its current patient administration system.

NHS Bury says staff are testing the product and working with local service provider CSC to make sure it is fit for purpose.

In April, director general of informatics Christine Connelly set the National Programme for IT in the NHS’s remaining local service providers, CSC and BT, deadlines for “significant” progress with the ‘strategic’ systems they are due to deliver.

She said that CSC must get iSoft’s Lorenzo into a care setting by November and working smoothly in an acute setting by March.

NHS Bury’s statement says: “Early next year, LRC 1.9 will be able to have documents such as paper referrals uploaded into the system directly attached to the patient’s episode of care.

“This will enable all information to be stored within the patient record, allowing healthcare professionals to view documentation instantly.”

It also details that from early next year, the system will allow staff to enter clinical information directly into standardised electronic documentation.

“This will include the ability to record allergies and health issues as well as being able to complete clinical assessments," it states.

“The trust expects to increase efficiency by reducing the number of times a patient is asked for basic health information, maximising clinical time. Additional functionality will be gradually rolled out across services."

Stephen Mills, chief executive of NHS Bury, said: “At NHS Bury, we believe that having good IT systems in place supports our staff in providing the best possible care for our patients.

“The trust has previously been involved in successful early adopter programmes, such as GP2GP and NHS Summary Care Records, which can improve the safety and quality of patient care.

“We are pleased that we are once again leading the way with Lorenzo Regional Care and plan to introduce this system to all eligible community services by the end of November.”

Links:

iSoft

CSC

Sarah Bruce

Bury is Lorenzo’s November milestone (18 Aug 2009) (14)
Bradford plans Lorenzo expansion (28 Aug 2009)
Three more early adopters for Lorenzo (19 May 2009) (9)
Connelly sets a November deadline for suppliers (28 Apr 2009) (12)

Reader's Comments

Right date - wrong deliverable?

06 Oct 09 13:10

Christine Connelly was widely reported as having said the November deadline applied to a deployment in an acute secondary care setting

I can't find a direct quote but the FT interview and subsequent article (the main cited sources) on April 28th 2009 (and EHI) reported :

>>specific deadlines have been set to get Isoft’s and CSC’s most advanced system running in a big acute hospital by the end of November and working smoothly across it by next March.<<

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3caff4da-338b-11de-8f1b-00144feabdc0.html

So which big acute hospital is it to be? Eight weeks to go.

my-o-my

06 Oct 09 15:10

Christine did say in an Acute not in ‘a small part of a PCT to start with then growing it over an unknown period of time over time’.

Now if the information that I have is correct why o-why have they not gone for TPP SystmOne, which is a proven system that works and is progressing nicely with different modules being added in what seems to be a controlled way. (no I do not work for TPP and we do not have SystmOne).

I may have this wrong but is not the first focus of Lorenzo in the Acute sector?

Deliverable.............

06 Oct 09 16:10

There must be a play on words here. Deliverable? I suggest CSC had Christine tone down her statement at Harrogate more or less as soon as she said it. After all we seem to forget whos in charge here. The contracts may have been poorly written in the first place and have now may have been watered down through numerous change controls to the extent that that tail is now in fact wagging the dog. Woof woof!

By the way BT have a few weeks left to get a London site live. Looking forward to the change in wording that will let them off this deliverable if it doesn't happen.

Not even close

07 Oct 09 11:10

IMHO before Lorenzo can dream of hospital wide go-live it must have flawless support for

Clinic booking
Bed management
Order communications
Lab results
LIMS, RIS and theatre system interfaces
Mandatory secondary care activity reporting

and hundreds of other functions a PCT would not exercise.

Given we are now well past 2007 and delivery of Phase 2 in the Output Based Specs we should also be looking at

Discharge summaries
Out-patient prescribing and discharge medications
In-patient prescribing

The PCT deployment described above, whatever it does support [some sort of demographics service, minimal clinical noting and an embryonic document management system?], cannot be regarded even as a dry run for secondary care. FAIL!

Let's Get the Facts Right!

08 Oct 09 12:10

I thought I would add a comment to clarify the situation in respect of Bury in my role as CIO for NHS Northwest.

The milestones that have been agreed around Lorenzo Care Management ('PAS') have been already been reported in the press. In essence Lorenzo needs to be deployed successfully in any sector by November. Within NME there were a number of candidates for this first Early Adopter, but in the end we focussed on Bury PCT for a number of reasons. In addition to the above Lorenzo needs to be on track for deployment in an acute trust by the end of March at this review point in November. Subsequently Lorenzo Care Management needs to be successfully deployed in the Early Adopter acute trust, this is planned to be Morecambe Bay at the end of March 2010.

The deployment of Lorenzo Care Management in Bury PCT will be a major step forward in the delivery of Lorenzo in that it will be the first relatively 'big bang' deployment of Lorenzo with hundreds of users. Is it the same as deploying in an acute trust with thousands of users....of course not, but they will be using a functionality that Morecambe Bay will be using when they go live. I know its easy to be critical and sceptical about Lorenzo delivery, and I have done this on many occasions myself! But despite the delays there is a real opportunity for Lorenzo to be a crucial solution to the challenges we face as we grapple with the economic and financial downturn in the NHS.

Alan Spours CIO NHS Northwest

re: Let's Get the Facts Right!

08 Oct 09 13:10

Yes - let's get the facts right post hoc.

And...

>>Lorenzo needs to be on track for [my italics] deployment in an acute trust by the end of March<<

... means precisely nothing has to be delivered - and everyone knows it.

plea for information

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

09 Oct 09 07:10

Alan, thanks for commenting. Could you tell us whether the ultimate goal for Lorenzo is a Detailed Care Record (one record per patient for each local health community), i.e. including secondary, community and general practice care, and if so whether the concerns expressed in the recent RCGP report ("Shared Record Professional Guidance" - on their website) have been addressed in the design of Lorenzo Regional Care?

SSEPRs in primary care raise complex issues: including secondary care would seem to add another layer of complexity, and I find it hard to see how it could be successfully implemented - but willing to be convinced.