Background/Context Healthcare information systems have evolved to play a major role in healthcare in modern society and the introduction of the electronic patient record aims to improve patient safety and documentation quality. SystmOne is a centralised clinical system developed by TPP (The Phoenix Partnership) and its introduction at the Hospice was due to a need to introduce an updated medical activity system that incorporated patient records.

Aim To successfully up-skill the hospice staff and to safely and effectively introduce SystmOne onto the IPU.

Approach used The introduction of SystmOne was seen as a major change for the IPU and hence a change management model was used to support this. The main areas addressed were process mapping, to identify areas where we could work more effectively and staff training. Staff training was of paramount importance as 26% of the IPU staff had no basic IT skills. This was given to those staff before embarking upon the SystmOne training.

The ward staff were all involved in the development of new IPU documentation and the review of nursing care plans.

The change has been anchored by the alteration in ward routine, staff job descriptions and the change in hospice policies.

Outcomes

• Improved communication between departments and external organisations who use SystmOne

• Reduced amount of time spent completing documentation

• Improved documentation standards

• Reduction in patients being asked the same questions on several occasions

• More than one person/department being able to access the patient notes at any one time

• Elimination of time spent searching for patient notes

• Enhanced management of out of hours phone calls thereby improving clinical safety

• Improved audit and monitoring

Application to hospice practice We were one of the first IPU’s to ‘go-live’ with Systmone and the improvements have been wide-reaching for both patients and staff.

Nicola Butterfield

Lead Nurse, IPU

Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice