18 April 2008
Humber Uses SystmOne for Learning Disability Services
This article was produced by Christine Adams, Business Change Co-ordinator for Humber Mental Health Teaching NHS Trust, for staff involved in a deployment of SystmOne for Learning Disability Inpatient and Continuum services. Christine hopes that other SystmOne users will find their experiences and ideas useful.
The Continuum services has a team of 12 staff who provide intensive home-based assessment and intervention for adults with learning disabilities who also present with challenging behaviour and/or additional mental health needs. The service also provides training for carers and staff to help them understand, cope with and manage people in their usual environments. The team covers the large area of Hull and East Riding and includes an admin officer, qualified nurses and Support, Time and Recovery workers who promote positive lifestyles and help clients maintain contacts and reintegrate with their local communities.
SystmOne: patient care in the 21st century
SystmOne is being deployed by our Trust as part of NPfIT (the National Programme for Information Technology). It will mean that client assessments, care plans and notes can be stored and accessed electronically so that paper notes will become a thing of the past.
SystmOne will be used by 90 clinicians and admin staff in the inpatient units at Townend Court and in the Continuum service, based at Aysgarth House. The project started on 10th March with roll-out continuing across the trust. Gary Green, Manager of Riding Unit, is very enthusiastic about the new system and can’t wait to get his hands on it. "It’s going to make things more efficient, effective and streamlined. I think it will make communication better and easier, standardise documentation and support the care pathway."
David Harling, Nurse Consultant and head of the Continuum team, agrees. "We’ll be able to give more quality of care and improve standards. It’ll free up more time for clinicians once it’s fully operational and in the long run it’ll be better for services as a whole. It also builds in a larger network of GPs, PCTS and so on. Its potential is phenomenal."
"Our staff are very enthusiastic," says Helen Wilkinson, Modern Matron. "Their feedback forms show that they’re positive and excited. We’ll be doing rigorous comparative work to see how things are changing. It’s made us look at our current systems and see what needs to be improved. The standardised documentation has already helped to consolidate the working relationship between Continuum and Townend. We’re pleased to be chosen for this pilot and it fits in well with the development of services at Townend."
"Obviously there are still some issues to be ironed out," says Gary. "There’ll be demands on the service to free staff to be trained. But we’ve identified ‘super users’ who will be trained to support other users and I think this will help."
"The good thing about this," comments David, "is that it puts the practitioner directly in touch with live information about patients, which can lead to more proactive interventions and greater evidence-based practice."
"I’d just like to say a special thank you to all our teams," concludes Helen. "It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our staff."
The units went live on SystmOne on March 25th. TPP hopes to report on how they're getting on later this summer.
