East Lancashire Hospitals Go Live with Ascribe ePrescribing and Medicines Administration
9th January 2014 – Ascribe is pleased to announce the successful Go Live of the Ascribe Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) system at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (“East Lancashire”).
The Go Live marks the final stage in the Trust’s strategic partnership with Ascribe to implement a fully integrated Pharmacy solution through Trust-wide Electronic Prescribing. With Ascribe Web Pharmacy and eMedicines Management already in place, the move to ePrescribing is the final stage that will enable a single workflow of information from the prescriber to the dispensary staff, using a single patient record which eliminates the need to transcribe routine medications, and provides decision support to clinicians.
Ascribe’s Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) ensures that prescriptions are accessible at all times by clinicians, ensuring patients receive correct medication, avoiding accidental harm through manual prescription, which increases patient safety.
To assist with the associated cultural, IT and process changes a project such as ePMA presents, East Lancashire utilised Ascribe’s Business Transformation services to help with the transition. Ruth Townson, Senior Pharmacist at East Lancashire commented “the team at Ascribe have been really helpful in engaging key stakeholders in the trust throughout the project, from implementing Electronic Medicines Management last year, to Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration this year.”
East Lancashire has used tablet computers on the ward since the implementation of eMM last year. Ruth comments “The tablets have generated a lot of interest throughout the Trust; Pharmacy were the first department to be using mobile technology in clinical areas. It’s great to be at the forefront of technology in the trust, as the technology has been established for over a year this will help us moving forward with electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration.”
Neil Fletcher, Chief Pharmacist commented “Ascribe has helped us gain trust-wide engagement, as Electronic Prescribing is trust wide it’s not just for the Pharmacy department. The ePMA solution will deliver benefits including integration with trust wide systems, cost savings from drug spend, reduction in time spent in the dispensary and more time at patient bedside, reduction in errors of handwritten notes, achieving a paperless status, all of which will ultimately help us deliver better patient care.”
Stephen Critchlow, Executive Chairman of Ascribe, commented “It’s fantastic to see Ascribe’s first Pharmacy customer meet their ultimate goal of implementing Electronic Prescribing. I’m sure they will start to realise benefits of full ePMA from immediate effect.”
About Ascribe ePMA – ePMA provides the closed loop of medicines management leading to tighter control of drug budgets, faster discharge turnaround and increased safety. ePMA enables complex regimens to be prescribed with a single click and supports all forms of UK practice – Independent prescribing, Supplementary prescribing and Patient Group directions. Drug supply requests are instantly communicated for faster turnaround. The solution is designed to follow the workflow of clinicians and nurses for prescribing and administration. The system has in-built Medicines Reconciliation and supports clinical screening by pharmacists. The use of Patient’s own medication is supported and drug administration can be recorded via touchscreen devices. ePMA provides an end-to-end integrated process with no transcription.
About Ascribe
Ascribe delivers high quality clinical IT solutions and services to over 70% of the UK’s secondary healthcare providers, and serves customers in Australasia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Core strengths include Pharmacy and ePrescribing, Electronic Patient Records (including Patient Administration Systems), Unscheduled Care solutions and Mental Health Client Management systems. In addition, Ascribe provides Consultancy expertise in Business Intelligence, Transformation and Integration.
Through integration and interoperability, Ascribe, as a member of EMIS Group, helps clinicians across multiple care settings, share vital information, facilitating better, more efficient healthcare and supporting longer and healthier lives.
Ascribe is a Microsoft Gold Partner and was awarded Health Partner of the Year in 2012.
Website: www.ascribe.com
About East Lancashire
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust provides high quality services for the local population of over half a million people across East Lancashire and the surrounding area. The Trust employs 7,000 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work, and treats nearly three quarters of a million patients a year from the most serious of emergencies to planned operations and procedures.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust was formed on the 1st April 2003, following the merger of Blackburn Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Health Care NHS Trust and Burnley Health Care NHS Trust.
