Publish date: 1 July 2022
Please be advised that the planned Rio system merge which was due to take place on Friday 8 July has been rescheduled and will now take place from 6pm on Friday 15 July 2022.
As you will be aware from previous updates, Mersey Care currently has two separate instances of the Rio Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system which will be merged to deliver a single system for the population we serve.
The system merge is planned to commence from 6pm on Friday 15 July and is expected to be completed by 10pm on Sunday 17 July. During this time Rio will be unavailable.
Please refer to the important information below regarding the business continuity arrangements you need to be aware of.
Your actions
During downtime
It is essential that you have saved your work and logged out of Rio before 6pm on Friday 15 July 2022. Any users still logged in will be automatically logged off, which could result in lost work.
From 6pm on Friday 15 July through to 10pm on Sunday 17 July the system will be unavailable for use. Please record any patient information/activity on paper for entry into Rio once the system is available.
Beacon – the business continuity solution
Beacon is a read-only business continuity solution that has been built for use whilst Rio is unavailable.
The tool will provide access to essential patient information to allow services to continue to function without a clinical system. It is not intended to provide the full electronic patient record or replace the functionalities found within Rio.
An online learning module for Beacon has been developed and Rio users are asked to complete the training prior to the system merge. The eLearning will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Beacon is only accessible during business continuity. You will be notified by Trust email communication when the system is available for you to access. This email will contain a link to enable you to access Beacon.
Please note you will only be able to access Beacon if you have a Rio account. If you experience a problem accessing Beacon, please contact your IT Service Desk.
To access the eLearning and for further information about Beacon, please visit YourSpace.
Planned admissions
If you are aware of any planned admissions to wards during the planned downtime period, please review your patient history prior to the system being taken offline and print and prepare admission assessments as required. Beacon will hold the past 3 months clinical documentation and progress notes. However if you require any documentation that precedes this then this must be printed in advance of the planned downtime.
NEWS2
All wards have a stock of paper NEWS2 charts. Any paper NEWS2 charts used can then be scanned into RIO using the naming convention NEWS2 chart. As soon as the system is available, electronic NEWS2 forms must be completed for those who have scored 3 in a single parameter or a total of 5 or more, and added to the electronic form. No other retrospective recording is required.
EPMA
Any new inpatient admissions or bed moves during the period of downtime need to be completed manually on EPMA. Read the EPMA admit, discharge and transfer guide.
Reporting
The Trust’s Business Intelligence Team are working to facilitate reporting from the new merged environment.
Changes will be made in the background of the system during the merge weekend and after the systems have merged. Every effort will be made to ensure that existing reporting is maintained. We ask that you be vigilant with any reporting you use, checking it thoroughly before actioning. If you do notice anything that looks unusual, or should you have any issues or queries, please contact the Business Intelligence Team using the email addresses below:
BiT Reports: BiT
IMP Reports: InfoDevelopmentRequests
Further information
Please visit the Digital Zone on Mersey Care’s YourSpace site to access further information and useful resources including FAQs.