BeDigital Week December 2023

This December the Digital Team at the Trust invited colleagues to join them on a variety of digital events spanning a full week (11 – 15 December). These events gave people the opportunity to meet the Digital team members and to learn more about the systems we currently use and will use going forward.

They also gave a platform to ask questions which were particularly pertinent following the announcement of the new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system launching next year. It was fantastic to see so many colleagues engaging with the events as they ran throughout the week.

Monday 11 December kicked off with an introduction to the Digital Team. Digital colleagues introduced themselves and then Lee Rickles, Chief Information Officer, took questions about the launch process and go live of the Trust’s new EPR system. Trust colleagues who dialled in were keen to know how the system would work in practice. Lee Rickles explained that the last time the Trust changed EPR in 2012, it was from a paper-based system to Lorenzo which made the change far greater for staff to use an electronic system rather than paper and although the two systems do operate quite differently all staff will be provided with training and support to enable them to use SystmOne.

On Tuesday we saw the largest turn out of colleagues who dialled in to the session. Those attending were interesting in learning more specifically about the new SystmOne platform. Karen Bellard showed our teams around a test ward which was demonstrated through SystmOne, giving them the opportunity to relate to their own work and ask questions about how the will use the system.

It was the turn of Ian Clucas, Deputy Chief Information Officer, on Wednesday. Ian took colleagues through the Interweave and the history of the Yorkshire & Humber Shared Care Record starting in 2018 through to where we are now present day. He provided a thorough explanation of how Interweave manage the Shared Care Record and what this means for clinicians as well as patients. He demonstrated the way data can be viewed by those that need it and explained how important it is for the data to be updated in real time.

On Thursday we were joined by Raymond Hounon, Head of Healthcare-Life Sciences & Scientific Research and Dr Rujuta Sanap, Customer Engineer, at Google Cloud. Between them they provided a fascinating insight into innovations in digital and the future of technology, through their work with the NHS and healthcare sectors, with a particular emphasis on Artificial Intelligence. Attendees were then taken through the Med-PaLM 2 platform. This provides an online ‘clinical assistant’ which is intelligent enough to answer questions in the same way a clinician could. The answers were checked against real clinician’s answers and cross referenced to evaluate how well they fit. In all criteria the checks showed that the clinical assistant could provide the same information for most elements, and where it differed the information given was not in any way harmful to the diagnosis or false.

The conclusion of the events on Friday came with an overview of EPR data and testing from Amanda Rockett. As part of the change of systems the Trust will be undertaking data validation. This is important to ensure the data fully migrates from Lorenzo to SystmOne. It also tests the functionality of the system to ensure it supports the processes used by our services. 

These sessions were a fantastic way for Trust colleagues to learn more about the department and its function. Providing opportunities for attendees to understand the present systems and where the systems are heading. Additionally, they presented a platform for questions to be raised by those using the systems to further understand how to make the most of what they provide.

There are plans for more of these exploratory sessions to be made available for colleagues as we progress through the system changes.