Oxford Health chooses Better to revolutionise e-prescribing

Oxford Health chooses Better to revolutionise e-prescribing

Second mental health global digital exemplar picks OPENeP as the best fit

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust is to implement an Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) solution called OPENeP from Better, working with CGI as implementation partner.

The trust is the second global digital exemplar providing mental health services to choose OPENeP as the result of an initiative to develop a procurement framework for open systems and platform technologies that was led by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, where OPENeP is also currently being deployed.

Oxford Health is planning to pilot the ePMA solution on an inpatient mental health ward and to evaluate the results before rolling the system out across the Trust.

Once complete, the system will enable staff to electronically prescribe and order medication, access knowledge and decision support, and be backed by a robust audit trail. Ultimately, it will replace all hand-written prescriptions and drug charts.

Alison Corfield, head of clinical systems, said: “We are very excited to start our EPMA journey and to be working together with trust colleagues, Better and CGI towards delivering benefits for patients and staff.”

Oxford Health provides physical, mental health and social care for people across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon in Wiltshire and Bath in North East Somerset. It employs 6,000 people and provides a wide range of services for children and young people, adults and older people, working ‘close to home’ wherever possible.

The trust is known as a digital leader and is one of just seven organisations that provide mental health services to have been named as a global digital exemplar. It is also a teaching, training and research trust that works closely with local universities to enable patients and service users to benefit rapidly from the latest advances in healthcare.

Clinical staff were closely involved in the procurement process that led to the decision to choose OPENeP and reported that the system was ‘user friendly’, ‘logical’ and had ‘good patient alerts functionality’.

Oxford Health will integrate the system with its existing electronic patient record. It has also taken the decision to implement the Better Clinical Portal and the Better allergies module to enable clinicians to more easily access information about their patients and maximise the use of the data.

To support its digital transformation and the creation of a digitally enabled workforce, the trust will be enrolled in the Better Innovation Programme to explore, learn and test new digital services for adult mental health.

Matt Cox, managing director of Better in the UK and Ireland, said: “We are really pleased to be working with Oxford Health on e-prescribing and medicines administration.

Oxford is a forward thinking and innovative Trust now looking to further their digitalisation and we are very pleased to be supporting them in this journey”.

Donna Kelly, senior vice president for South and Midlands at CGI in the UK, said “The ePMA solution will aid the trust in providing a more consistent service, offering patients an even higher quality of care. We are proud to be able to support Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust with their implementation and we look forward to building a strong strategic partnership bringing our delivery expertise from working across the NHS.”

Better is a Slovenian company with a growing UK office. It has a strong open culture and has created the Better Platform using the international openEHR standard.

OPENeP is an open and intuitive ePMA solution built on open standards and designed to be compatible with any electronic patient record, lab, pharmacy and decision support system a healthcare organisation is using.

Better has six OPENeP customers in the UK; four in the acute sector and two in community and mental health. It has successfully partnered with CGI on OPENeP deployments in the past, including at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.