WITH all the focus on a “re-build” one of the biggest overhauls at Hereford County Hospital will go on behind the scenes – affecting every patient past, present, and future.

This week, Wye Valley NHS Trust confirmed that it was finally ready to implement the electronic holding of patient records.

For years, the trust and its predecessors have held such records on paper – accessed and carried around by hand, stifling clinical innovation, and having the potential to compromise patient care.

Around 250 clinical incidents relating to delayed, misfiled, unobtainable or missing, inadequate, or illegible healthcare records were logged by the trust between March last year and February this year alone.

Another significant consequence of paper notes is that salient patient information cannot be readily shared with the trust’s partners in health and social care provision – heightening both clinical and safeguarding risks.

All this changed at the stroke of a pen and the signing of a “landmark” contract between the trust and software specialist IMS MSXIMS to implement a system allowing medical records to be accessed via computer from all buildings out of which the Trust operates.

NHS funding streams are being channelled into the £15 million project, the costs for which are covered.

“Clinicians from across the trust will be able to access relevant and appropriate information within a single electronic patient record, at the point-of-care, to help them make more informed decisions on the diagnosis and treatment of a patient,” said trust project manager Simon Lind.

Dr Jake Burdsall, consultant lead for IT at the trust said: “To have visibility of a patient’s record, especially in emergency situations, is fundamental for improving care.”

“You can’t underestimate the importance of having clinical information, be it past attendances, episodes or diagnostic results, to help make immediate and future decisions on a patient’s care.”

The implementation of the electronic patient record system (EPR) will replace the current Patient Administration Systems (PAS) by the end of next year.