London Programme for IT

Kingston PCT strives forward with RiO

Kingston was the first primary care trust in London to be up and running with the RiO 5.0 electronic patient record system, and has now upgraded to version 5.1.

Next Generation talks to James Hawkins, Kingston's project manager, to find out how the transition went.

Since it went live in October, RiO 5.1 has helped the flow of information around the trust, especially between the range of multi-disciplinary teams.

For example, care plans will now be filled in on screen so if there is a problem out of hours, district nurses can access the patient's record and ensure inventions are in line with the care plan. As a result, admissions to A&E will be reduced.

Before RiO, paper records were often inaccessible at the weekend with the end result that the hospital was regarded as the only safe option.

RiO helps with reporting too. All clinical staff provide excellent care and services but we need to be able to demonstrate this. A data warehouse has been built to support ‘live' information reporting from RiO and up-to-date reports can now be produced on a daily basis. This is a significant improvement on the monthly reporting frequency which took place on the previous systems.

Reports that are produced show when something has been done, how it has been done, and enables the organisation to accurately cost the services they provide. Queries can also be answered quickly which drives improvements and clinical processes.

The performance reports created from the data warehouse support the new business operation. In the past, some departmental monthly contact/referral reports had to be collected manually taking up to four hours. Now it is done automatically so time is put to better use.

Kingston PCT spent a great deal of time planning the move to RiO and this has ensured the system supports current services and has the added benefit of supporting new service developments. Planning provided an opportunity for each team to understand exactly what their role was and encourage them to be forward thinking and challenge why processes were done in a certain way. Could things be done more efficiently in future?

Everyone started thinking about things from a business perspective and using the system to demonstrate what they do. With RiO 5.1, Kingston PCT is more clinically efficient and operates more efficiently on a business level. Importantly, communication between teams is much improved too.

Moving to RiO has been a huge challenge but improves the way our PCT Provider Arm operates. For success, it is essential to get end user engagement so everyone needs to be aware of what is ahead and the vision for your trust. Here are some of my top tips to make the move to electronic patient records as smooth as possible.

Kingston's top 10 lessons learned

Get Rio raised as an agenda point in staff meetings and identify local champions early and find creative ways to communicate.
Drive the benefits that RiO will bring to the service.
Focus on business change activities: hold demos, make environments available to service staff, prepare process maps, handover packs and quick step guides.
Set up your RA Smartcard management team as soon as possible.
Ensure training is relevant to the individual and what they do day-to-day, for example a district nurse does not need to know about bed management.
Involve your service staff in the data migration to ensure that everything is as expected at the point of go live.
Arrange on site support post go live as burning questions are not always asked during training (many thanks to Newham for their support!).
Test your processes within the limits of the application.
Make sure your internal infrastructure is robust and flexible.
Prepare your Helpdesk for the change in support process that will come.

Benefits statement

The NHS London Programme for IT has published its first Benefits Statement.