28 March 2007

Moorfields Eye Hospital Prepares for Major Patient Record System Upgrade with Knowledge Solutions

Prepares 500 doctors, nurses and clinical staff for new system roll-out.

Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the UK's leading centre for ophthalmic treatment, teaching and research, is supporting the major upgrade of its Patient Administration System (PAS) by deploying knowledge transfer software and consultancy from Knowledge Solutions (www.knowledgeuk.com).

As part of a structured training programme, 500 doctors, nurses and clinical staff are benefiting from online refresher training on the advanced Stalis Silverlink PCS PAS system, ahead of it going live on 16 April 2007.

Given the large number of staff affected by the new system, pressure on their time, changing shift patterns and turnover of doctors as they pass through Moorfields while training, the NHS Foundation Trust needed the ability to provide easily accessible, mandatory training and ongoing context and job sensitive support to follow up scheduled classroom based training.

Knowledge Solutions’ technology has been used by Moorfields to quickly create interactive, online training materials that are tailored to specific roles and functions on the new system. Its built-in management system tracks the progress of individual students using Knowledge Solutions to ensure that all staff complete and pass mandatory refresher training on the PAS software.

The advantage of Knowledge Solutions' technology is that content created for training will be re-used as context sensitive, in-process support for those using the new PAS system, maximising Moorfields' investment. Additionally, any alterations to the PAS system can be easily flagged to users through this support function, eliminating the time and cost overheads of retraining 500 staff on minor system changes.

"Ensuring that all of our staff are completely up to speed on our upgraded Patient Administration System is obviously vital to ensuring the highest possible levels of patient care," commented Ian Mercer, Training Manager, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. "Using Knowledge Solutions’ software has enabled us to deliver flexible, online training, management and ongoing support to users, tailored to their individual roles. This will mean minimal disruption when we go live with this critical update."

Training is delivered as part of MOLE (Moorfields Open Learning Environment), an advanced education facility where staff book PC-based training time to fit in with their working schedules. It is additionally available via Moorfields' intranet for desk-based staff.

Moorfields chose Knowledge Solutions due to its extensive range of capabilities, ease of use and the fact that it is not specific to individual applications or packages. This means it can be used to create content across multiple systems, providing continuity for users and maximising the return on software investment.

"Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is an acknowledged world-leader in delivering specialist ophthalmic treatment," said Adrian Palmer-Geaves, CEO, Knowledge Solutions. "By using Knowledge Solutions it has been able to ensure that its staff are completely prepared for its major new system going live, which will translate into a smoother changeover that benefits both staff and patients."

After the success of the PAS training programme, Moorfields is now planning to use Knowledge Solutions' technology to create content for the roll-out of its new finance system later in 2007. Additionally, pilot programmes to use Knowledge Solutions with desktop applications and Moorfields' intranet are underway.