Heartbeat: Colleagues united in Unity

March 1, 2019

Our recent Unity engagement events gave colleagues much reassurance about our new electronic patient record.

We’ve received encouraging feedback with 71 per cent of attendees agreeing learning points were well made, 93 per cent of attendees found the content relevant and 97 per cent of attendees would recommend the event to fellow colleagues.

The two engagement events took place at Sandwell’s Education Centre in January with the aim of giving colleagues more information about the ‘pain and gain’ of implementing an electronic patient record.

The engagement sessions were kicked off by Roger Stedman, Consultant Anaesthetics and Critical Care Medicine who is certain that Unity will aid drug prescription. He said: “When Unity goes live our prescribing of drugs will be done in an entirely electronic fashion. We know that incomplete prescriptions will fall from approximately 62 per cent to 0 per cent, inappropriate doses will fall to almost 0 per cent, legibility and signing prescriptions will rise to 100 per cent and the recording of allergies will rise to 100 per cent.”

Leong Lee, Clinical Safety Officer and Consultant Cardiologist echoes these thoughts and said: “Unity will make things more consistent, it will improve communication between different members of staff and it will improve clarity. No longer will you have to look at a bit of writing in the medical notes and wonder what the words say because of illegibility. You won’t have to look at drug charts and wonder about prescriptions because of the handwriting or wonder who has actually prescribed it.”

Attendees heard from Dr Alistair Morris (Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust) and Helen Beck, Executive Chief Operating Officer (West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust), who talked about how the implementation of their own electronic patient records has benefitted their organisations.

Both covered initial teething problems and how it took a short period of time for staff to learn how to use the system. However, once they became comfortable with it, the majority of them went on to become efficient users. In fact the majority of staff in both organisations have said they would not go back to using a paper based system.

Colleagues also had the opportunity to see Unity in action as they took a patient on their Unity journey through their care pathway. There was also a chance to quiz senior clinical and operational leaders on how Unity will change the way we perform our daily duties.

Here’s what colleagues had to say about the event:

“At first I thought ‘oh no another IT system’ but I now understand the ways and wherefores. I envisage problems with some colleagues coming to terms with this but if we adopt the listening and helping strategy they will come round. Bring on go-live.”

“Much more reassuring to hear from other Trusts who have gone live. My concern is that some things they raise, we don’t seem to have learned from e.g. need for training that is not in silos, need for more devices etc.”

“Very informative, glad I came! Really useful to hear from those that have lived and breathed the journey, I don’t feel as scared for go-live now.”

“Good to see how other trusts kept the staff engaged. Relieved some anxiety how the system takes a long period of time to settle in. Ward staff would benefit form attending.”