A history of healthcare computing and advances in clinical information productivity in Southampton, 1980 -2024: essay 4: evolution of the University Hospital Southampton clinical data estate from 2010 to 2021
A history of healthcare computing and advances in clinical information productivity in Southampton, 1980 -2024: essay 4: evolution of the University Hospital Southampton clinical data estate from 2010 to 2021
The era of worldwide digital transformation since the 1940s has created huge opportunities for improving information flows around the global healthcare ecosystem, and for increasing clinical productivity, clinical safety and the lives of all citizens.
Healthcare is a particularly complex environment for which formulaic programming
methodologies and hierarchies are inadequate to deliver the “best in class” and truly “digital by default” solutions which would be beloved of their users.
There is therefore an enduring requirement for an efficient Electronic Patient Record (EPR) which is fully optimised for healthcare professionals and their support teams. The bespoke University Hospital Southampton (UHS) EPR remains among the most advanced, efficient and user friendly software systems in its class on a worldwide basis.
Most commercial systems and the top down programs which have been mandated by Government bureaucracies have generally lacked truly agile and iterative development with continuous end user input. Unusually, the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) EPR was developed in house and at very modest cost through a close working partnership between locally employed IT professionals and the end users in all applications and subject fields, and many voluntary inputs.
However, this uniqueness also remains a vulnerability, in that the high level demand for greater systems integration across the NHS might yet be accompanied by enforced substitution of the Southampton system by a nationally imposed but less well adapted EPR.
The need for a history of what has gone before is therefore as important as ever, so that our successors can understand the foundations and the philosophy of the system that they have inherited and may wish to defend, and so that others might learn from our collective work.
This is the fourth essay in this series on the history of digital transformation in Southampton in which review of the developments of the UHS EPR between 2010 and 2021. Over this time the fully formed and integrated hospital EPR emerged.
Electronic Patient Record;, eDocs, HICSS, eQuest, UHS Lifelines, UHS CHARTS
University of Southampton
Rew, David
36dcc3ad-2379-4b61-a468-5c623d796887
29 March 2026
Rew, David
36dcc3ad-2379-4b61-a468-5c623d796887
Rew, David
(2026)
A history of healthcare computing and advances in clinical information productivity in Southampton, 1980 -2024: essay 4: evolution of the University Hospital Southampton clinical data estate from 2010 to 2021
(Principia Medicinae Digitalis Sotoniensis)
University of Southampton
49pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
The era of worldwide digital transformation since the 1940s has created huge opportunities for improving information flows around the global healthcare ecosystem, and for increasing clinical productivity, clinical safety and the lives of all citizens.
Healthcare is a particularly complex environment for which formulaic programming
methodologies and hierarchies are inadequate to deliver the “best in class” and truly “digital by default” solutions which would be beloved of their users.
There is therefore an enduring requirement for an efficient Electronic Patient Record (EPR) which is fully optimised for healthcare professionals and their support teams. The bespoke University Hospital Southampton (UHS) EPR remains among the most advanced, efficient and user friendly software systems in its class on a worldwide basis.
Most commercial systems and the top down programs which have been mandated by Government bureaucracies have generally lacked truly agile and iterative development with continuous end user input. Unusually, the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) EPR was developed in house and at very modest cost through a close working partnership between locally employed IT professionals and the end users in all applications and subject fields, and many voluntary inputs.
However, this uniqueness also remains a vulnerability, in that the high level demand for greater systems integration across the NHS might yet be accompanied by enforced substitution of the Southampton system by a nationally imposed but less well adapted EPR.
The need for a history of what has gone before is therefore as important as ever, so that our successors can understand the foundations and the philosophy of the system that they have inherited and may wish to defend, and so that others might learn from our collective work.
This is the fourth essay in this series on the history of digital transformation in Southampton in which review of the developments of the UHS EPR between 2010 and 2021. Over this time the fully formed and integrated hospital EPR emerged.
Text
Essay 4 DRew UHS CDE Evolution 2010-2021 29.03.2026
- Author's Original
More information
Published date: 29 March 2026
Additional Information:
David Anthony Rew MA MChir (Cambridge) FRCS (London)
Consultant General Surgeon, Southampton Hospitals
Clinical Informatics Research Unit
Faculty of Medicine, The University of Southampton
Keywords:
Electronic Patient Record;, eDocs, HICSS, eQuest, UHS Lifelines, UHS CHARTS
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 510703
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510703
PURE UUID: b208b704-b66e-400d-b6d9-2541fcbe627e
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Date deposited: 17 Apr 2026 16:32
Last modified: 18 Apr 2026 02:05
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