Lorenzo (electronic health record)

Lorenzo was a controversial electronic health record platform (EHR) by DXC Technology, originally designed in the early 2010s as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS. Lorenzo was deployed across more than 20 NHS trusts across the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2015, with most trusts progressing procurement activities to replace the system as of 2020.

Lorenzo has been a highly criticised platform, with NHS reviews and coroner investigations finding the system responsible for a number of adverse patient events.

The NHS and DXC Technology initiated negotiations for a new whole-of-system EHR in 2010. Despite the National Programme for IT being wound up by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, the department announced that it would enter into an agreement with DXC to supply Lorenzo to NHS trusts under a Standing Order Arrangement. The SOA allows the NHS to negotiate more beneficial agreements with providers by using the full purchasing power of the combined NHS system.

There is a long history of negotiations between the NHS and the company.^[1]

On 4 September 2012, the UK Department of Health announced that whilst it was "dismantling" the National Programme for IT, Lorenzo would be supplied under a new legally binding agreement with DXC.^[2]

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust was the first to deploy the technology in June 2010, which was in Release 1.9 at the time.^[3] Humber NHS Foundation Trust was the first mental health organisation to use the DXC Lorenzo patient record systems in June 2012.^[4] Lorenzo systems were introduced to Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust during 2015.^[5] In June 2015 Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust went live with Lorenzo.^[6] In July 2015, Digital Health Intelligence reported DXC as stating that 19 NHS Trusts had contracted to take the Lorenzo system.^[7]

George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust,^[8] Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust,^[9] Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust^[10] are also implementing Lorenzo under a financial support package which has been described as controversial.

Deployments of Lorenzo have not been without reported teething troubles. Delays in the provision of data to NHS England's waiting list system were linked to Lorenzo implementations in an HSJ article in May 2014.

North Bristol NHS Trust went live with Lorenzo in November 2015, replacing a Cerner system. North Bristol was the first NHS trust in the South of England to take the system as part of an open procurement exercise outside of DXC's central relationship with the NHS.^[11]

Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust installed a Lorenzo system in May 2017.^[12]

In 2018 the company was given about £10 million for a national “digital exemplar” programme for the National Programme for IT. Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust and Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are to be the examplars maximising the potential benefits of using electronic patient records.^[13]

Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust switched its electronic patient record from the Lorenzo system to System C’s Careflow in July 2020. Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust will do the same shortly. Others of the 20 trusts which installed Lorenzo systems as part of the National Programme for IT are in the process of launching procurements for new systems.^[14]

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals uses Lorenzo, and it has sometimes been problematic.[1]