Priya Patel
Please note this page was last updated in 2019. Visit Priya’s LinkedIn profile for more information.
Priya is a pharmacist with a broad range of clinical experience across a variety of hospitals in Oxford and London.
Priya has completed an NIHR funded Masters in Clinical Research based at St Thomas’ Hospital Division of Imaging Sciences. As a former Darzi Fellow, Priya is passionate about service improvement and developing herself as a “change leader”, especially when it comes to more innovative methods of working and using digital platforms to support and empower patients and staff across the healthcare system. Priya’s current role is as Clinical Implementation Lead for an electronic content management system. Since joining the Fellowship programme she has been promoted on a secondment from the Royal Marsden Hospital to Chelwest leading on Cerner EPR implementation – a joint project with Imperial.
Digital Pioneer Fellowship project: Implementation of an electronic content management system
Problem: Although the Royal Marsden Hospital (RMH) has made progress towards a paperless system, there are still significant areas where paper remains the predominant clinical record. This poses a number of issues and potential clinical risk.
Solution: Implementation of an electronic content management system in the Trust is a key enabler towards ‘paper-light’ working alongside making processes more efficient and reducing clinical risk.
Scale of the project: Where viable, physical forms will be replaced with electronic form analogues and where this is not an option print-on-demand forms will be rolled out into which key metadata can be embedded (patient demographics and form-type). The system forms a critical component of the proposed RMH IT Strategy for 2015 – 2020 and is forecasted to be used throughout most of the organisation and across the 2 major hospital sites. Responding to the needs of the front line staff has also been a focus and through this we are looking at the development and deployment of a mobile solution to allow clinicians to access the patient record on tablet or mobile devices whilst also enabling them to complete an e-form.
Desired impact: The desired impact of the project is wide reaching in not only addressing the mandate to be paperless by 2020, but also in reducing variation in working practices across the Trust where it is unwarranted. This will all allow for a more seamless implementation of the future EPR which is currently being procured, and ensure efficiencies are realised across the organisation.
Progress to date: The Electronic Document Management (EDM) system went live throughout the Trust with the Rapid Diagnostic Assessment Centres being the forerunners in adoption. Ten staff were using the system for 40-60 patients a week by summer 2019 when Priya was seconded to Chelwest to work on another exciting digital project involving Cerner EPR implementation – a joint programme with Imperial. Priya said she was thrown in at the deep end, and the Fellowship was very handy at this point. She took over as EPMA transformation lead and they went live early November 2019 across the Chelsea site. Priya focussed on change management and the prescribing and administration side of things, and feels happy with how it has gone.
“I joined the Fellowship programme because I was involved in a digital project, my first, and I was keen to join the right network for support.
The element of the programme that created the most value for me was the session that we had on Difficult Conversations, which at the time had direct application on my ECM project at the Marsden, in terms of engaging our Consultant stakeholders. I also took value from being able to network and learn from the other EPMA Pharmacists.
During the programme I have been seconded from the Marsden to Chelsea, this was a promotion. Having been on the Fellowship programme I am a lot clearer that I wish to stay in the field of digital transformation, particularly on the product design side of things. I will take what I’ve learned as a clinician to these people and places. The programme has given me greater awareness about the opportunities and what other people are up to in this space. On retuning back to the Marsden, I plan to work more closely with the CCIO to learn and develop myself further. Equally, I’m keen to sharing my experiences through continuing to mentor junior pharmacists.” – Priya Patel