Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust has taken a significant step towards a more digital future by rolling out electronic test ordering for pathology and radiology using Clinisys ICE.
The Trust deployed the order communications system to around 2,000 clinical users across all of its wards, the maternity and paediatrics units, the emergency and same day emergency care departments, and outpatients in June.
Previously, clinicians placed orders for imaging and pathology investigations on the trust’s 25-year-old patient administration system or on paper. The move to ICE means they can use a modern, intuitive system designed to make the process faster and safer.
The implementation also paves the foundations for further IT developments. The trust is looking to procure a new electronic patient record, while its laboratories will deploy the Clinisys WinPath laboratory information management system next year. Once the new LIMS is in place, clinicians will also be able to receive test results electronically through ICE, improving turnaround times and making more information available to clinicians for diagnosis and treatment.
Guy Sisson, a Consultant Gastroenterologist and the Trust’s Chief Clinical Information Officer, and the Senior Responsible Officer for the project said: “This has been a long-running project that has really picked up speed over the past year. Once we decided on a big-bang go-live, our project team, our IT team, Clinisys, and our PAS supplier all worked together to make it work. It was almost like a hackathon, with everybody in a room making it happen. Since then, the feedback has been how intuitive the system is. It has been received very, very well. And it supports the next steps on our digital journey: turning off paper, implementing a new LIMS, introducing digital results reporting and, eventually, deploying a new EPR.”
The implementation of Clinisys ICE at Dartford and Gravesham is also part of a wider series of pathology IT developments in the Kent and Medway Pathology Network. This is a partnership of seven laboratories across three pathology services at four NHS trusts: Dartford and Gravesham, Medway, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, and East Kent Hospitals University.
The network wants to create a single pathology platform, by implementing Clinisys WinPath at all seven laboratories, and making ICE available to all the hospital clinicians and GP surgeries that order tests from them.
Clinisys has put substantial resources into developing ICE in recent years. The system has a new user interface, which Dartford and Gravesham is using, and has been built out to support information sharing across sites, networks and regions.
Louise Dewing, Programme Manager at Clinisys said: “The roll-out of Clinisys ICE at Dartford and Gravesham shows just how important pathology is to modern healthcare and how modern pathology systems can act as the foundation for further digital developments. This implementation took place in a complex environment, but we were delighted to see it through to a successful go-live, and even more delighted to see how it has been received. We now look forward to supporting the roll-out of Clinisys WinPath and further ICE projects across the network.”