Newcastle makes switch to Cerner

Tags: A Cerner CfH iS McKesson Millennium Newcastle Order communications

12 Nov 2009

The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has successfully gone live with its new Cerner Millennium hospital information system.

The trust says it achieved its main objective of ‘business as usual’, switching to the new system without disrupting patient services on Sunday night.

Its new Cerner Millennium system is being implemented under a contract with University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) and Cerner.

In the first phase of the project, the trust has gone live with inpatients, outpatient management and with Choose and Book, with the system fully connected to the NHS Spine.

NHS Connecting for Health gave the trust final clearance to connect to the Spine last Friday.

David Allison, trust business operations and development director, told E-Health Insider: “It has gone very well. I’ve been very pleased at the very positive response we’ve had from staff.”

He confirmed that the trust had carried out the initial implementation across the entire trust, which covers five hospitals.

On Monday 1,036 staff used the new system. Eventually the numbers will be far higher, with many more of the trust’s 12,000 staff expected to use Millennium.

Allison said the trust had seen the benefit of taking additional time to make sure the switch to the new system did not cause disruption.

“We spent the extra time making sure there wouldn’t be an impact on 18-week waits, cancer care pathways and outpatients. We felt we were in very good shape to go and did so on Sunday evening.”

Monday and Tuesday were, he said, “very quiet”. “We had a few problems such as people forgetting their passwords, but nothing we weren’t expecting. There were other things as well, but we’ve had great support from Cerner and UPMC.”

He also confirmed that the trust had ceased using its old patient administration system. “We’ve switched the McKesson system to read only format. Its prudent to have it in the first few weeks. As of Monday, we’ve been using the Cerner system in earnest.”

The trust will now aim to start adding extra clinical functionality. Allison said: “We now need to focus on integration and to begin to introduce electronic health records, as that’s what will give the substantial benefits to patients.”

He added: “The following phases of roll-out will include order communications and medicines management.”

Jon Hoeksma

Newcastle set to switch on Millennium (06 Nov 2009) (4)
Cerner go-live at Newcastle delayed (03 Sep 2009) (25)
Newcastle prepares for go-live (16 Jul 2009) (1)
Royal Berkshire selects UPMC for Cerner (10 Jun 2009) (2)

Readers Comments

Well Done

12 Nov 09 16:32

Well done to everyone at Newcastle; hopefully we will hear more as the system beds-in.

Worth waiting for

12 Nov 09 21:59

What pleases me most about this implementation was that they weren't afraid to delay it when they knew it wasn't quite right. I hope other Trusts are taking note.

Southern Benefits for Cerner Users

13 Nov 09 09:27

I am glad to see that all the hard work and pain the southern trusts went through to make the Cerner Millenium system fit for purpose has not been wasted. Good luck Newcastle!

Wait & see

wrede.oz@optusnet.com.au

22 Nov 09 04:06

In the past other UK Hospitals also delayed Cerner runouts until 'all problems' were solved - of course they weren't, so lets wait & see about this one. I want to see if Newcastle's revenue streams are unaffected by the Cerner deployment, what happens to the Trust's CC rating in the next year and what the frontline staff users say about the system (if they are allowed to speak openly). The Cerner implementation in New South Wales is attracting the usual mixed reviews, to put it mildly...

You couldn't make it up

26 Feb 10 17:38

In December a relative of mine booked an orthopaedics o/p appointment at the Newcastle Trust via choose and book. Fortunately she wrote down the date and time. The appointment letter arrived three days after she actually attended. Now she has received three letters in two days with three separate follow-up appointments with the same Rheumatologist (different days, different times). Two of them were in the same envelope. At least the new appointments are all in the future. Bless.