Six NHS health boards across the North of Scotland have implemented a joint electronic medicines management platform from System C, marking the first-ever multi-locality deployment of its kind.
The new system, which includes pharmacy stock control (PSC) and hospital electronic prescribing medicines administration (HEPMA) systems, replaces outdated paper-based processes and aims to enhance clinical decision-making while reducing the risk of prescribing errors.
Over 66 hospitals with 5,163 beds now have access to the cloud-based platform, allowing staff to digitally prescribe and manage medicines more efficiently. This results in improved prescription legibility and accuracy, reduced transcription time, and remote access to patient medication information for over 25,000 staff members.
Heather Binns, North of Scotland HEPMA senior programme manager, praised the regional collaboration that led to the successful implementation of the system, highlighting the benefits for both patients and staff.
The program, supported by the Scottish Government, began in March 2020 and involved a central regional team along with clinical, pharmacy, finance, and digital staff. System C deployed the integrated PSC system in October 2021 and worked closely with the six health boards to design workflows and conduct user testing from 2022 to 2023.
David Pfleger, director of pharmacy at NHS Grampian, emphasized the significance of the collaborative effort to implement a single medication prescribing and administration system across multiple health boards in the region.
The successful deployment of the electronic medicines management platform in the North of Scotland sets an example for regional collaboration in healthcare, with additional health boards expected to gain access to the system by October 2024.
In a separate development, Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust recently became the first specialist pediatric trust to integrate System C’s CareFlow Medicines Management (CMM) across their EPR platform.
