iSOFT unveils Lorenzo demo

Tags: A Information iS iSoft Lorenzo NPfIT Solution US

13 May 2005

iSOFT have released a Flash demo of their enterprise-wide clinical and administrative application Lorenzo on their website, and is asking for feedback from users.

The demo, which is not fully functional but aims to guide users through some of the most important aspects of the system, was uploaded to iSOFT's website with little fanfare at the end of last month. Registration is required to view the demo; according to the company, around 500 people have signed up so far.

Gordon Lorimer, iSOFT's NPfIT Commercial Director, said: "Our goal in creating the site was to make people aware of Lorenzo, how easy it is to use and the significant advancement in healthcare IT that it represents... iSOFT wants as many healthcare professionals as possible to share the Lorenzo experience and we feel that the online demo is an effective way to engage them."

The Lorenzo software will be available in the North West and West Midlands (NWWM) cluster, as well as in the East and North East under a separate deal made between iSOFT and Accenture.

There are currently eight sections in the demo, accompanied by either a voiceover or captions. These cover aspects of the software such as clinical data capture, timelines of encounters, and patient correspondence reports and documentation.

One interesting aspect of the electronic patient record display system in Lorenzo is that it will contain a graphical representation of how large the patient record would have been were it on paper. According to the demo, the system is also tailored to accept the new clinician smart cards to verify identity and the relationship the health professional has with the patient.

Beki Ruban, health implementation director and clinical director of the North West and West Midlands Cluster, one of the three clusters that will be using the Lorenzo product, said that the demo was especially useful for those who were unable to get to meetings to see demonstrations in person: "As the National Programme gains in momentum and as the Lorenzo application becomes clinically richer, the ability of healthcare professionals to be exposed to the solution in this innovative way and provide us with feedback and comments via the site will be extremely important."

Future plans for the demo include scenario-based and personalised demonstrations, that according to iSOFT will parallel developments in NPfIT. More information and the demo itself is available at http://lorenzo.isoftplc.com/ (registration required).

Readers Comments

what does this mean?

13 May 05 17:41

Does this mean that a Beta version will be close behind? and what will this mean for data migration? will and doctors want to migrate to another system then Lorenzo is on the cards?

Nice looks, but not a clinical system

16 May 05 11:49

The product looks very nice, but it again demonstrates the inability of many health software suppliers to provide a truly useful clinical system. Although configurable, the data structures are completely flat - there are no relationships between different "forms" as they call them. iSoft talk as if they will provide the clinical applications "free of charge" as part of the CfH program, when it is not clear to me, at least, that this is the case. Of course, the more often they say it, the more likely it is that trusts will delay purchasing any clinicals from alternative suppliers, which will ultimately ensure that Lorenzo is the ONLY solution available, regardless of cost.

[Post edited by EHI]

Early Adopters

16 May 05 12:57

Which Acute Trust is scheduled to be the first to have Lorenzo installed?

Not impressed

16 May 05 15:30

Adding Problems, Allergies, Alerts to lists and tracking them, etc are easy. Writing the progress note is the hardest part of an EMR. Just like most, demo everything else but what the Doc has to do for every single patient visit... usually means, unimpressively free text.

Getting that part right is what will set EMR's apart.

Free text - unimpressive but expressive?

17 May 05 20:45

Good old vernacular English ("free text") - with some technical extensions for the healthcare domain - has actually been the lingua franca of detailed progress notes in UK health records for years. And it's likely that this will remain the case for the foreseeable future - mainly because of the problems in expressing precisely what needs to be recorded in any other way. I wonder if - until there's some clear evidence for a robust alternative - it might be better to explore mechanisms for processing natural language - alongside more structured coding approaches - rather than being underwhelmed by a system that implements a free text solutiuon in the interests of clinical precision.

Unimpressive Free Text

maarten@landc.be

31 May 05 16:30

On the risk of sounding too 'commercial', I can assure the author of the May-17th comment that the current commercially available Natural Language Understanding tools are perfectly capable of achieving the tasks at hand: conversion of free text clinical notes into a code set (eg: Snomed CT). Too bad that untill now, nor the NHS architects nor the big vendors have found time and focus to evaluate these solutions.