Somerset To Improve Cancer Register EPR

Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust will be using NHS technology funding to improve integration of electronic patient records (EPR) with the Somerset Cancer Register.

The Trust is one of 131 that successfully bid for a chunk of the “Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards Technology Fund,” recently renamed the Integrated Digital Health Fund.   

Taunton received £228,000 for the purpose of transforming the Somerset Cancer Register into an Electronic Cancer Patient Record.

In 2009, this register went national, allowing medical staff to access current patient information on demand within a hospital setting.

Information includes a patient’s journey from GP referral to treatments, to follow-up, covering their entire cancer experience.

Malcolm Senior, the Trust’s IT director, said the tech funding will be used to develop the interfaces between the register, EPRs and patient administration systems.

He added such work is necessary because it will help to decrease any duplication of administrative data, which is currently manually entered into the system.

“There is a fair amount of double data entry required, because at the moment there aren’t feeds that allow you to update directly from the clinical systems,” claimed Senior, speaking to a UK health IT publication.

Besides this, the integrated system needs to be compliant with the HL7 industry standard, allowing for admission, discharge, transfer data and tertiary referral information to be captured in real-time.

Funding Prevents Extra Spending

The new funding is set to help more than 90 Trusts who use the register. Senior claims that the extra financial help has removed the need to charge out to cover the cost.

Last month, NHS England announced that bidding was now open for the next stage of the Integrated Digital Health Fund.

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