empath Go Live

Last month, the WinPath Enterprise Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) went live at all three empath NHS Trustsites in Leicester namely Leicester Royal Infirmary, Glenfield Hospital and Leicester General Hospital.

empath is an arm’s length organisation established by Nottingham University Hospitals and the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trusts to provide pathology services. The new WinPath Blood Transfusion Information Management System manages all Blood Transfusion laboratory services across all the empath Leicester sites. The empath Blood Transfusion service provides services to 1.1 million patients, carrying out in excess of 100,000 blood groups and antibody screens a year.

Moving to a single consolidated LIMS is identified as a key step in reorganising, rationalising the service, and maximising efficiencies as well as reducing the overall costs. A key aim of the empath network is to deliver a highly flexible pathology solution where work can be easily relocated and processed at any location. Before the migration to a single LIMS, previous methodologies for redirecting work between the hospital sites was limited and the move to a single LIMS is now accepted as the natural next step to support closer working practices.

Following a comprehensive testing and user acceptance process, the system went live on the 24th November. Peter Lennard-Jones, Head of Informatics at empath, and lead on this project, commented: “Following meticulous preparation the go live went smoothly and I’d like to thank the empath LIMS implementation team and the CliniSys Deployment Team for their professionalism, hard work and dedication over the last few months to ensure this project launched successfully. It is a reflection of the dedication and commitment our teams have to improving services for our patients and customers”.