We are now live with electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) across all inpatient wards!
The rollout started in October 2019 at Goole hospital, the first wards at Scunthorpe started with the system in February 2020 and the Grimsby rollout started mid-May and took just one month.
The system allows doctors to prescribe from anywhere in the hospital.
They can use the system to check appropriate doses and to cross check for allergies as well as drug interactions while they are prescribing.
Nurses can see clearly what drug and dose has been prescribed and they can look up information on drugs at their fingertips rather than referring to the paper copy of the formulary.
There’s also a clear record of who has administered what and when and the system vastly reduces the chance of medication errors.
1.7 million drugs administered through electronic prescribing
As of 24 June a total of 388,109 electronic prescriptions had been performed on the system with 1.7 million drugs administered.
The benefits are already being seen with a marked reduction in drug administration errors and estimated savings of £30,000 per year in printing costs.
From doctors and nurses to students and dietitians we have over 3,000 trained staff actively using the system trust wide, and we have issued over 1,000 accounts to agency and locum staff to cover shifts.
Staff say the system is much safer and easier to use and patients have been impressed to the see the Trust moving away from paper.
A big thank you to the five members of the ePMA implementation team who have managed to complete the rollout on 41 wards Trust-wide, during the height of the pandemic, through the use of innovative virtual training methods.
The next step for the project will be for Family Services (Paediatric wards and Maternity) to get the technology.
