SOUTHAMPTON’S teaching hospitals have scooped a national award for a pioneering electronic patient discharge system.

The eDischarge programme, designed by medical staff alongside a pharmacist and records analyst at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, is meant to allow doctors to enter medicinal information directly into an electronic document before a patient is discharged rather using a handwritten sheet.

For this the SUHT was named the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists and UK Clinical Pharmacy Association’s information technology award winner for 2010.

The system is said to have improved the legibility and speed of discharge information and also allows GPs to access this information electronically.