Lorenzo Care Management (Release 1.9) is now operational at the first organisation in England, NHS Bury. Almost 600 clinical and administrative staff are using the system to manage their administrative tasks including booking appointments, recording contacts and managing case notes since the system went live on 3 November.
Lorenzo will be used across 31 community services such as podiatry, speech and language therapists and district nursing.
The migration from the Trust's previous patient administration system, iPM, took place over the weekend following extensive testing by NHS Bury, NHS North West SHA, NHS Connecting for Health and local service provider CSC.
Clare Mitchell, NHS Lorenzo Delivery Director said: "The effort that's been made by the team to get this deployment completed before the end of November has been tremendous. I'm very proud and grateful for the work done by the NHS and CSC team, to ensure we completed the go-live.
"This is a major achievement and the real test will be over the coming weeks as the users get to grips with the new system and we monitor system performance".
The replacement of the trust's patient administration system is just the start of the process that will see new functionality added to the system.
Release 1.9 of Lorenzo is a major step change on the features available within Release 1. The care management functions of R1.9 will enable automated workflow and task management for clinicians and the release also allows clinicians to record clinical documentation (the foundation of detailed records) to support improved clinical care across care settings. The project team is now preparing for the gradual rollout of electronic clinical documentation to services that is due to start early next year.
Ann Halpin, Associate Director of IM&T at NHS Bury, said: "Following months of preparation, we are delighted that Lorenzo Regional Care is now in place. During the deployment, our priority has always been to ensure that the system supports our staff in providing high quality care for our patients.
"We are confident that Lorenzo Regional Care is the best solution to enable us to share information swiftly and securely between services and, in time, with other organisations. We look forward to 2010 when more trusts deploy the system so that we can realise the benefits the NHS Care Records Service will bring for our staff and patients."