Partnering With Black Country Healthcare NHS
Is your Trust looking to implement a new EPR or clinical system? Needing specialist support at every phase of your organisation's upcoming project?
Here’s how we helped one NHS Trust lead its RiO implementation project with a people-first approach.
The Requirement
Black Country Healthcare NHS (formerly Black Country Partnership) had selected to implement the Access Group’s (formerly Servelec) RiO EPR system in partnership with Dudley & Walsall Mental Health NHS ahead of the Trust’s merging in order to help digitise patient records and improve the services offered within mental health; children, young people and families; and learning disabilities services across the region.
This was to be followed by phase 2 of the implementation which was to be rolled out to the Trust’s CAMHS services.
Main Objectives
- Improve interoperability of systems between the Trust’s
- Create a single point of view for each patient to improve care
- Digitise patient records
- Increase the flow of information between Trust’s to save time and increase the turnaround on patients seen
- Provide a better experience for patient treatment
Project Progress
Business Analysis
The Trust needed IT Works Health support with the provision of 3 expert Business Analyst’s who had worked with the RiO product previously. Engaging with the services to understand their requirements and helping to map out and communicate the benefits that the new system would have on their day-to-day duties. It was essential that the Business Analyst’s provided understood the RiO product and could translate and implement the needs and wants of the services.
Configuration and Development
IT Works Health were asked to supply the Trust with 3 Configuration Analyst’s and Developer’s who had prior experience of working with the RiO system. The objective was to ensure the system was designed and developed in a way that aligned with the Trust’s processes and provided an EPR that was best suited to enhance the improvement of patient care.
Training and Floorwalking
Ahead of the Go-Live for the first phase of the implementation, IT Works Health provided a total of 8 specialist RiO Trainer’s that were involved in the delivery of classroom-based training to the Trust’s end users. These sessions ensured that upon go-live the clinical end users were in a position to maximise the use of the RiO EPR and guaranteed a seamless transition from previous processes. Upon the go-live of the first phase of the implementation, IT Works Health were also requested to supply resources for floorwalking support. The floorwalkers provided on site at the elbow support, for any queries that arose during the go-live period.
Ahead of the second phase of the implementation, there were differing challenges as the lead up to go-live coincided with the lockdown periods in 2020 as a result of the covid pandemic. This meant that the Programme team had to think differently about the delivery of the project. As a result, Training was to be delivered via E-learning, and IT Works Health were requested to supply 3 expert RiO E-learning Developers in order to help to produce online training material within the modules of RiO. The go-live again coincided with an extra need for floorwalking support, however, this was provided in the form of an online helpdesk on MS Teams whereby end users could check in with expert RiO Trainers to ask any queries they faced when using the new EPR.
The Delivery
Following an 18 month implementation plan across the 2 phases of the programme. Both Trust’s went live on RiO aided by the support of a number of RiO specialists supplied by IT Works Health.
The result of implementing the EPR increased the amount of patients the Trust’s were able to see, in a shorter amount of time, and ultimately improved the patient experience and care that they received.
The implementation of RiO also made the merger of the 2 Trust’s at a later date a much easier process to undertake.
- 17
- Experts Connected