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University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay trust confirmed it has gone live with iSoft Lorenzo Regional Care 1.9, which has been developed specifically for the NHS in the North, Midlands and East of England, the area covered by CSC as local service provider.
It said that the software is live in every ward, and that 3,500 staff across its five hospitals will be using the electronic health record for all clinical activity.
"Becoming the first acute trust in England to implement Lorenzo is not only fantastic news for the Trust and our staff, but also for our patients," said the trust's chief executive Tony Halsall. "All of our wards were brought live by the project team in a phased manner over the Bank Holiday weekend and by the morning of Sunday 30 May 2010, every ward in each of our hospitals was using Lorenzo. We expect to complete the full implementation of Lorenzo by Thursday 3 June 2010.
"The rollout of the new system has gone very smoothly and we couldn't have done this without the support and dedication of our staff – both those on the wards who have embraced Lorenzo and those behind the scenes who have worked tirelessly to ensure that it went without a glitch," he added. "This is an exciting time for the trust. We are at the cutting edge of this new technology and are looking forward to developing Lorenzo."
"With the launch of any new computer system, you expect to encounter teething problems that only appear after go-live," said Steve Fairclough, head of health informatics at the trust. "We have a team of people on site who are correctly equipped to both identify and fix any that may appear. I am confident in Lorenzo and also in my team who are working around the clock to implement it."
The trust has completed the move two months later than the end-March deadline set by the Department of Health's chief information officer Christine Connelly. Unlike BT, CSC has not reached a new agreement with the Department of Health over its work on NPfIT.
The department said it is still in discussions with CSC regarding its future deployments.
In April, iSoft chief executive Gary Cohen predicted that Morecambe Bay would go live with Lorenzo in early May.
Comments passed on by the trust indicated that some staff had been apprehensive about the move from iPM, the previous system, to Lorenzo, with a few teething problems. "At first, I thought Lorenzo was mind boggling but I have now mastered it," said Yvonne Anderson, a staff nurse at Furness General Hospital. "Transferring patients is much easier and I was really chuffed to be able to print out labels, wrist bands and patient front sheets from one screen – it is so much quicker! It is a new system, so it is bound to take some time to settle in."
"The changeover has not been as bad as I thought," added Anna Fubini, a children's ward staff nurse at the same hospital. "I thought it was going to be a nightmare but it has been really straight forward so far! There will always be little glitches but support has been on hand."
Kable's senior health analyst Victor Almeida cautioned that delays to the project have damaged the prospects of other trusts wanting to follow suit. "Although this is a major achievement, it may well be too late for iSoft to celebrate a trust-wide implementation of Lorenzo," he said. "Roll-out delays, reports of poor reliability and verbal procrastination have caused many health organisations to lose trust in the company's ability to deliver NPfIT systems to 60% of England.
"New players such as McKesson and various ASCC suppliers are already making inroads into the NME regions," he added, referring to the additional suppliers scheme in the south of England. "iSoft's Lorenzo has also been criticised for limited retro-compatibility. Players such as Cerner and Microsoft allow health organisations to develop their products Millenium and Amalga on top of their existing systems."
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