The Royal Marsden NHS FT has gone live with Connect, its new electronic patient record.
Described as “the largest and most important digital transformation programme in The Royal Marsden’s history”, the Epic electronic health record went live at 4:00pm, 17 March. The trust also introduced a patient app and website called MyMarsden.
David Newey, Chief Information Officer at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, commented on the go live on Twitter, stating: “Today was a good day! Of all the go lives I’ve been party to, this was the smoothest, in no small part to an amazing team, trust and our supplier community.”
Over the weekend, news of the system going live was shared across social media:
We are live! 2 drug rounds in the bank, a handover, admissions, discharges and seemless sample label printing (eventually). A roller coaster of a day, but as smooth as we could have hoped and the patients continue to receive top quality care! Well done and thanks to all ?
— Hayley Grafton (@HayleyGrafton) March 18, 2023
Just minutes away from our Connect go-live at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust powered by Epic, 600 people online and around a hundred in the room who’ve been working on building and testing over the past two years. https://t.co/dIDKaUYZRn
— David Miller (@David_Miller18) March 17, 2023
@RM_Connect …. Go live Day! First Handover to night team. Watching the staff adapt , absorb and grow into this new way of working was exciting to be part of. Some challenges but everyone took it in their stride …. pic.twitter.com/dZYgjRR3WV
— Keetje Gull??? (@GullKeetje) March 18, 2023
As part of the go-live, the trust highlighted to patients: “As we move from one system to the other, there will be more staff on the wards than usual. This includes higher numbers of Royal Marsden staff as well as staff from other UK and international hospitals. These staff are experts on the new computer system and will be able to help us as we get used to using Connect. These support staff can be identified by their pink or green “Connect” branded T shirts.”
The communication added that patients may notice staff on new devices, as well as highlighting that there could be some delays to services.
To keep up-to-date with the programme, view the Connect Twitter account here.
