North West London ICS goes live on Oracle Health Electronic Health Record

For the first time, four NHS Trusts have collaborated to share one electronic health record (EHR), from Oracle.

The acute care facilities across the North West London Integrated Care System (ICS) are now fully live on Oracle Health’s EHR. This, it said, provides caregivers with a real-time view of patient information from across the system to better inform care decisions and enhance care coordination.

Following the adoption of Oracle Health’s EHR, the 12 acute care facilities that comprise the North West London ICS are sharing a single EHR domain, which supports a patient population of 2.4 million.

The most recent Oracle Health EHR go lives within North West London ICS took place at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust and The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. They join the EHR domain already in use for several years at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. At peak times, there are as many as 7,600 staff members concurrently using the EHR.

“Getting all 12 hospitals live on the same EHR was a major undertaking, but that is just the start of our journey,” said Robbie Cline, joint CIO, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust and The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

“We now have the opportunity to change the way we work. As well as being able to deliver clinical services more flexibly across North West London, our administrative teams will be able to support services across all our hospitals. We will also be able to develop the system more rapidly, drawing on resources at each of our organisations to lead on developments that benefit all sites.”

By moving from multiple legacy digital and paper-based systems to a single EHR platform, clinicians at each hospital can reduce the time spent on entering data and administrative tasks, freeing them to focus more on caring for patients. Integrated medical devices also upload automatically to the patient’s record, reducing potential errors, and freeing up clinician’s time. If a patient’s vital observations and assessments are outside of expected ranges, staff will be alerted and prompted with appropriate care plans to give the best treatment available.

“We’re focused on equipping providers with a more comprehensive view of each patient’s health history to help them make more informed care decisions,” said Distie Profit, UK general manager, Oracle Health. “Sharing a single, integrated EHR across all four North West London ICS organizations will enable caregivers to access patient information more quickly and easily, improving the user experience for staff working at multiple sites. Sharing clinical pathways also can boost collaboration, helping clinicians across the region re-design and optimise care with the goal to achieve better patient outcomes.”