Cerner EPR implementation experiencing big problems - BBC

An electronic patient records system at North Bristol NHS Trust has been described as a “complete shambles” by clinicians, who have warned that it represented a potential danger to patients.

 

Reported problems with the new Cerner Millennium electronic patient record system, which went live last month under an £69m National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) contract with BT, include patients being booked into non-existent clinic appointments or not being told about scheduled operations, resulting in some operations being cancelled, according to press reports. 

 

Martin Bell, director of IM&T at the trust, told healthcare informatics site Ehealth Insider that North Bristol had experienced some “unexpected problems” in the past few weeks with some of the outpatient appointments and theatre lists due to “implementation and data migration difficulties in some clinics. But he insisted that patient safety had not been compromised.

 

“Our information management and technology team, supported by our suppliers BT and Cerner, have been working very hard to sort out any initial issues as quickly as possible and we are already seeing improvements,” he said.

 

According to an ealrier BBC report, the problems meant patients were being booked for impossible appointment times, such as 12.05 am, and quoted correspondence saying staff and the system were both on the “verge of meltdown."

 

The BT contract to deliver Cerner Millennium to three ‘greenfield’ sites in the South of England was agreed in April 2010. North Bristol was the last of these sites to go live following Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust which also went live in December and Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust, which went live in July.