Belfast Health and Social Care Trust went live last week with the new encompass electronic patient record from Epic that will roll out across Northern Ireland in a £275 million implementation designed to provide a single digital record for every person.
The new system first went live at South Eastern HSC Trust late last year with the other trusts to come on board over the next 18 months. Epic has also been chosen for Ireland’s national children’s hospital and is being watched closely by Children’s Health Ireland for the proposed benefits it can bring.
The system went live across Belfast Trust at 4am on June 6.
Belfast Trust’s director of performance, planning and informatics Alastair Campbell said encompass was now the interface through which every clinical and administrative team delivers care.
“This is a huge change and there will be a period of adjustment for staff as we get used to the new system,” Mr Campbell said.
Health and Social Care Northern Ireland senior responsible owner (SRO) for encompass, Dermot Hughes, said implementing encompass in a trust as big as Belfast has been a massive undertaking.
“I have often said that transformation on this scale requires a HSCNI wide approach and once again, I am thankful for the efforts and support from colleagues right across the system who are on the ground supporting a safe go-live for patients.”
encompass will be a single, electronic care record for every person in Northern Ireland. It has been built on Epic’s UK foundation system, which has been implemented in a number of trusts including Manchester, Cambridge, Great Ormond Street and University Hospital College London.
Using the UK foundation means Northern Ireland doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, but it does involve replacing numerous legacy systems patient administration, ED, theatres, anaesthetics, intensive care, hospital pharmacy, and maternity.
There is new functionality such as ePrescribing and medicines administration, clinical decision support, patient flow and order communications.
Interfaces have been built to laboratories and radiology, as well as to general practice systems.
Northern Ireland is also pioneering the use of the Epic system on a continuum of care, including community and social care as well as secondary care.
