Elly Yates-Roberts |
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT), a UK centre for specialist treatment and biomedical research, has moved its Electronic Health Record (EHR) system from on-premise servers to the Microsoft Azure cloud.
The EHR system allows patients’ digital health records to be updated in real time and is used by frontline healthcare staff to inform treatment. With 1.5 million electronic forms being completed in the system per month, it is critical to running of the hospital. “If clinicians are unable to access it, they can’t get timely information about their patients, and that obviously has a direct and negative impact on the healthcare they can provide,” said Martin Waugh, head of EHR development at LTHT.
Microsoft Azure will allow LTHT to cope with its growing number of users whilst protecting patient’s medical information. “We are now developing and deploying new clinical capabilities directly into the cloud, such as electronic forms that we can send directly to patients so they can complete them at home or while they are waiting in clinics,” said Waugh. “The cloud has allowed us to take massive steps forward in our trust’s digital transformation and positioned us for many years to come.”
“Many healthcare organisations are running on-premise servers that become too expensive, time consuming and increasingly difficult to operate and maintain,” said Jacob West, director of healthcare and life sciences at Microsoft UK. “Azure solves these issues, as well as providing built-in security and privacy features that are critical for healthcare teams handling patient information.”
“The thing that’s really impressed us about using Azure is that we have managed to do this substantial digital transformation project with no disruption to any of our services, which is obviously incredibly important in a hospital,” said Paul Jones, chief digital information officer at LTHT. “But it’s been business as usual; the only difference clinicians have seen is the ability to get patient information quicker than before.”
LTHT also plans to use Microsoft Azure for patients at two new hospitals, for adult healthcare services and Leeds Children’s Hospital. The EHR system is also being used by healthcare teams in Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.