Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust has successfully implemented the Better Meds electronic prescribing and medicine management (EPMA) system across all 18 adult inpatient wards at Darent Valley Hospital. The system, integrated with the trust\u2019s electronic patient records (EPR) provided by Alcidion, was deployed over a single weekend to enhance medication safety and efficiency.<\/p>\n
During the two-day transition, more than 500 paper drug charts and 8,000 prescriptions were digitised by a dedicated clinical team, with a team of healthcare staff and digital support assisting throughout the process.<\/p>\n
Dr Guy Sisson, Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at the trust, highlighted the collaborative effort: \u201cThe implementation was an incredible effort with months of planning which led to over 200 healthcare staff from across the integrated care system joining forces to support the go-live weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EPMA system is designed to streamline medication administration and prescribing, reducing time spent on these tasks and improving workflows for both nurses and doctors. Early feedback from staff indicates faster medication rounds and more efficient prescribing. The system also features decision support, including drug interaction alerts, high-dose alerts and allergy checks, enhancing patient safety and offering reassurance to staff providing care.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the EPMA system provides real-time access to dose-level data, which was previously data-based, enabling the trust to analyse and improve medication safety practices, further improving patient care quality.<\/p>\n
Julia Scott, Pharmacist and Senior Responsible Owner for the EPR Programme said: \u201cThis Better Meds implementation will allow us to deliver medication safety improvements on a whole-system scale. EPMA allows us to implement strong barriers to error for high-risk medication, whereas in the past we were reliant on weak barriers such as training and guidelines. We can also build data-driven safety nets to allow us to rapidly identify potential high-risk prescribing and intervene quickly. It is genuinely transformative when it comes to a human factor\u2019s approach to safety\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dr Guy Sisson added: \u201cOur vision is to be an outstanding hospital trust providing the best possible care for our patients that is safe, well-coordinated, in the right place and designed around the person\u2019s needs. Our new EPMA system is perfectly aligned and a true digital representation of our aspirations. I want to congratulate everyone involved and personally thank them for getting the system over the line, which is a monumental step towards where we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2019, Dartford and Gravesham procured Alcidion\u2019s Miya Precision to advance its digital maturity. By integrating Better Meds\u2019 electronic prescribing into the Alcidion EPR, drug information is now seamlessly connected with patient assessments, allergies, key lab results, and more. This enhances safety for prescribers and saves clinicians time by offering standardised order sets and allowing multiple users to view and use the medication record simultaneously.<\/p>\n
Future phases of the implementation will include outpatient clinics and other speciality areas, such as maternity and paediatrics. It will also be rolled out across inpatient wards at the trust\u2019s other main site, Queen Mary\u2019s Hospital, to support surgical elective care.<\/p>\n
Alja Babi\u010d, Better Meds Implementation Consultancy Lead at Better, said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a pleasure supporting Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust to optimise prescribing and medicine management. The \u2018big bang\u2019 rollout was one of the best we\u2019ve been involved in. It was smooth, well-planned and expertly managed, and the team should be extremely pleased with the progress made.\u00a0Dartford and Gravesham\u2019s commitment and great energy have been clear while working together.\u00a0 We are celebrating this being our 9th Better Meds go-live in the UK and look forward to working further on improving medication management processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate Quirke, Alcidion CEO, said: \u201cIt was inspiring to witness the dedication and extensive collaboration that led to the success of this rollout. We are proud to support Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust as they continue to expand and improve upon their digital infrastructure. We are also grateful for our partners like Better, who share in our belief that smart technology can drive meaningful change. We look forward to continuing this journey together, building on our joint commitment to innovation and progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The implementation of the Better Meds electronic prescribing and medication management system took place over a single weekend, thanks to the efforts of more than 200 staff from across the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care System.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":5592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5593,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591\/revisions\/5593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}