Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust

Each year, the Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust and its three supporting community hospitals help to deliver more than 2,300 babies to women in West Dorset.

The trust chose Health Net Connections (HNC), the sole UK distributor of GE Healthcare’s Viewpoint and Trium CTG software to oversee a project that would connect patient data, throughout their obstetrics, ultrasound and maternity departments and streamline information into an electronic record that could be accessed by users across four sites.
The entire implementation took only two months to complete and Viewpoint has been successfully up and running since September 2009.

Viewpoint is a complete digital documentation system which provides robust reporting and image archiving
functionality, whilst integrating patient scheduling,examination data and lab results into an electronic
record. Different system modules can be combined to build up unique solutions for women’s healthcare and
other medical departments.

The installation at the Dorset Trust enables Viewpoint to receive an expectant mother’s full profile; including patient demographics and appointment details from the central patient database (Sunquest Radiology Information
System (RIS)) using HNC's innovative Talk2 Integration engine, utilising HL7 standard messaging.

The measurements taken during the Ultrasound scan are transferred electronically to Viewpoint, reducing the risk of errors which can occur with manual entry of data.
Additionally, the system is interfaced to the Laboratory at the Royal Devon & Exeter Foundation Trust where blood analysis is carried out. Patient data is sent electronically to accompany a blood sample, and the combined results enable Viewpoint to undertake a risk calculation for Downs Syndrome.

Linda Chappell, Project Lead at the trust said: “We are now able to calculate a more accurate risk assessment for Downs screening to comply with the guidelines outlined by the UK National Screening Committee. Viewpoint is directly accessed by twelve users within the Trust, and information can be shared by midwives and clinicians throughout the trust.
She continues: “The team at Health Net Connections were great, extremely helpful and keen to get the project moving. In such a busy environment, where the day-to-day care of our patients is our top priority it was really important to have a network of people who could make things happen. HNC were very knowledgeable about the product and with additional funding we would be keen to expand the use of Viewpoint into other areas in the future.”