Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust RPA

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust migrate 6.5 million accurate and up-to-date records with RPA

The Challenge

Following the merger of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, the newly formed Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is the second largest community and mental health Trust in the country, serving a large portion of the West Midlands.

Prior to the merger, each Trust was using a different legacy version of the same Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system. However, upon completing the merger, it became apparent that the two different versions of the EPR were unable to transfer data to one another. The Trust is responsible for providing a wide range of services, including both physical and mental health, adult social care, and community services. This meant that there was a pressing need for a solution that could ensure patient records across the Trust were accurate.

Manually moving the data from one system to another was never a viable option. It was estimated that at least 20 people would be required to work full-time for 6 months to complete the project. There were approximately 6.5 million records to manage, made up of different types of data including appointments, progress notes, referrals and new patient registration forms.

Many potential solutions were explored, however it was determined that the cost was too great, pressing the Trust to look for alternatives.

The Solution

To meet this need, Midlands Partnership switched to a newer version of its EPR and constructed a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) workflow utilising Automate, NDL’s RPA toolkit. The process looks at all records and cross-references them with the NHS ‘Spine’ to ensure the most accurate records were being retained.

In the cases where there was conflicting data, the newest document was kept and transferred to the new system. It was also important that in cases where the Trust’s records were newer than those in the ‘Spine’, the central NHS record was updated.
Before the robotic process could start it was important that MPFT was confident that it was working with a clean data set. This meant an audit would need to be conducted of its records to ensure the integrity of the data set. Following this process, the Trust could start writing the scripts that controlled the robots.

What benefits has it seen?

As of late 2019, MPFT are currently in stage 3 of 12 of the migration project. Even though it is still early days, the following has already been achieved:

• A cleanse of the Trust's expansive data set
• A single, reliable and up-to-date patient record can now be viewed and altered on a unified system
• A significant financial saving was made, based on the quote received for other migration options

What's Next?

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust will press on with this migration, looking to complete the rest of the 12-step process in the coming months. The Trust are also looking at increasing their ROI by utilising RPA for other migrations, S2S and digital onboarding projects.