Diagnostics, clinical support and specialist services are an essential part of our Group.
What does the EPR mean for you if you work in diagnostics, clinical support and specialist services?
If you are working in areas such as radiology and imaging or in pathology, in a lab, in medicines’ management or perhaps in clinical specialisms such as oncology and neurophysiology, the EPR is going to bring some changes to the way you work.
The Norfolk and Waveney Electronic Patient Record (EPR) is a new digital programme for all sites and clinics of the three acute hospitals in the Norfolk and Waveney University Hospitals Group. It will change how staff across the Group work, bringing increased collaboration and replacing many paper-based records and many separate digital systems with one shared electronic patient record, improving how information is stored, accessed and shared.
Why this matters to your role
If you work in diagnostics, clinical support or a specialist team, you’re dealing with some of the most safety-critical information in a patient’s care – results, reports, prescriptions, referrals, specialist pathways. Right now, a lot of that lives in separate systems that don’t always talk to each other, sometimes even between trusts or specialties. The EPR brings ordering, results, medicines and specialist documentation together in one shared record, alongside pretty much everything else clinicians need to see.
What will be the key changes and benefits for diagnostics, clinical support and specialist teams?
• One request, one result: orders and referrals into your service, and the results or reports you produce, should sit in the same record as the rest of the patient’s care rather than in a separate specialty system.
• Cross-site visibility: results, reports and specialist notes will be visible across the whole Group. This will be useful where patients move between sites or when a specialty is delivered from one site for the whole Group.
• Fewer logins and fewer trackers: A number of today’s standalone logs and referral trackers are being built into the EPR, so there will be less places to check for information – and less logins to remember.
• Safety info right where you need it. Medicines, allergies and alerts show up alongside diagnostic ordering and specialist documentation, not tucked away in another system or folder.
• EPR go-live is just the start. Once live, the EPR will keep evolving – with new features and clinical decision support built in for specialty pathways over time.
What else do I need to know?
• There will be a new system to learn: Our EPR supplied by MEDITECH Expanse will replace or connect into the tools you use now for ordering, results, prescribing and specialist documentation.
• Training and preparation: as go-live approaches, expect role-specific training, practice environments and support materials. The programme is actively recruiting into training and change-support roles, including EPR Champions, now.
• A chance to shape it: the programme draws on subject matter experts from across the Group to inform and shape the design and build of our EPR, plus there are sessions on what the EPR means for specific professions. Watch out for further sessions as go-live draws closer.