Lancashire Teaching Hospitals is latest to deploy Kainos Evolve

Date posted
24 September 2013
Reading time
6 Minutes

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals is latest to deploy Kainos Evolve

London, UK - September 24th , 2013 - Digital technology solutions company Kainos has announced yet another major deployment of its flagship Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solution, Evolve?- this time with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest Trusts in England. The Evolve system is a key facet of the Trust's casenote digitisation programme and is already live across seven medical specialities. It will now be rolled out at a rate of one new speciality every month until all are online in May 2014. This is the seventh deployment of the Kainos Evolve EMR solution by a UK NHS trust in the past year. Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides district general hospital services to 370,000 people in Preston and Chorley, and specialist care to 1.5m people across Lancashire and South Cumbria. Janet Young, Business Improvement and Performance Manager at the Trust, and the business lead for the case-note digitisation programme, explains Lancashire's ambitions for the Evolve EMR solution: 'Initially we were looking for a straightforward scanning and digitisation solution so we could move away from paper patient records, but as we refined our needs we realised we needed more intelligent casenotes, to give consultants the latest clinical information at their fingertips and avoid the risk of patients' visits being cancelled due to missing casenotes and offering our clinical teams an intelligent patient record. Clinical engagement is fundamental to the success of the programme and any future developments. We are very fortunate to have strong clinical leadership and Executive support.' Kainos Evolve is an EMR system that has been designed specifically for the healthcare sector. It automates the creation, capture and handling of the full medical casenote including, historical casenote, clinical results, operational documentation, and electronic forms. Its end-to-end functionality, which includes eDischarge capabilities, ensures reliable information flow between hospitals and community services such as GP practices. Lancashire Teaching Hospitals has opted for a 'scan on demand' approach to digitising patient records, creating its own in-house scanning bureau. In advance of outpatient appointments, or directly following new admissions, paper notes are scanned into the Evolve system so that all of the latest information is available on PCs or laptops to consultants in clinics, in surgery, on wards and in the community. In time, mobile users may move to tablets, also supported by Evolve. Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is already feeling the benefit of Evolve, particularly in the reduction of missing patient notes or relevant clinical information. Janet explains: 'A respiratory consultant, who went live on Evolve last November, commented recently that Evolve helps him to deliver better patient care more quickly, because he has fast access to the patient's history, notes and any correspondence - even if he is on another site.' The Trust is now keen to add Evolve's eForms and workflow capabilities to prevent the creation of new paper. Workflows will include system flags to support clinical decision making, ensuring that actions can be taken promptly. The Evolve solution is also being further integrated with the Trust's EPR QuadraMed. 'Once we have all our Business processes and requirements aligned with our main clinical and Patient record system the benefits will multiply,' Janet says. On the Trust's experience of working with Kainos, she says, 'We have a good working relationship. The Kainos team really understands what we're trying to do. We're excited about the future potential improvements and developments.' Kainos Evolve EMR is used in more than 48 hospitals in the UK, helping the NHS on its journey to becoming a paperless environment by 2018.