Download our case study: The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust Transforms Cancer Care

About: Located in northwestern England, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre is a leading cancer center in the UK, providing nonsurgical oncology services to 2.4 million people in Cheshire, Merseyside, and neighboring areas. The CCC consists of three specialist cancer centers, including a 110-bed inpatient ward, specialist chemotherapy clinics, and home care services.

Challenge: The facility previously used a hybrid system of paper medical records and limited electronic capabilities for notes and prescribing. Staff faced six main issues related to the hybrid approach: cumbersome e-Prescribing, lack of clinical decision support, limited access to patient information, inconsistent documentation, prescription authorization delays, and regulatory compliance issues.

Execution: Leadership realized that CCC required a digital infrastructure and clinical decision support to meet the demands of delivering complex anti-cancer treatments. Once LIVE on a fully electronic system, oncology staff across 11 sites could access clinical information, place orders, and administer treatments more effectively. CCC followed MEDITECH’s implementation guidelines by creating a comprehensive program of staff engagement, education, and training, outlined in prototyped clinical stages — each of which required clinical sign-off. By enabling the medical staff to experience the LIVE system in advance, outside of the pressure of their busy clinics, CCC migrated from its legacy systems to MEDITECH’s EPR over a single weekend.

Results: Transitioning from paper-based medical records and limited e-Prescribing capabilities to MEDITECH’s fully integrated electronic system has benefited CCC by: 

• Providing oncologists with immediate access to patients’ medical records and stronger clinical decision support for cancer therapies. 
• Enabling staff to achieve a 20% higher influx of immunotherapy volume. 
• Eliminating system response time issues. 
• Reducing the ordering process for those chemotherapy orders requiring multiple cycles from between 15 to 90 steps, down to just 8. 

CCC’s experience demonstrates that integrating Oncology into your EPR improves care team collaboration, leading to more efficient cancer care delivery. CCC continues to extract MEDITECH’s rich functionality to help clinicians make better and more timely decisions. Ongoing technology projects will further streamline workflows and reduce clinical administrative time.

Quote: “Prescribing is much quicker, having access to one source for information is good, and being able to see nursing documentation is a positive. Also, we appreciate that referral documents are scanned in quite quickly now. We have confirmation of diagnosis before the letters are typed for a high proportion of patients, which, given the complexity of inclusion criteria for meds, helps us to ensure we’re complying.”

Helen Flint, Senior Pharmacist, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre