Enabling clinicians to transform healthcare
 |
| Sean Riddell, EMIS managing director |
By Sean Riddell, EMIS managing director
It is the mobility of patients’ primary care information that will underpin the delivery of care closer to home, to achieve effective long-term continuity of care and develop new population level services.
With 90% of care now provided by GPs and others involved in the primary care setting, the sharing of information - delivered whenever and wherever clinicians need it and in whatever system they need to use - becomes ever more important.
Interoperability is well established in other sectors
Most people can now switch banks without disruption, change mobile phone company without giving up their phone number, and change utility supplier without being cut off. They probably don’t realise it, but when they do so, they are using standards of interoperability to ensure they get the best deal for themselves and their families.
Interoperability is creating market competition, ensuring innovation and cost effectiveness and removing monopolistic behaviour. The same is required in healthcare. Electronic patient records need to be transferable across different systems across the NHS.
Interoperability is essential for healthcare
EMIS has long believed that interoperable systems are vital to making sure that information can be accessed ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere.’ We are already seeing examples of innovative primary care trusts doing what is necessary by driving forward joined-up programmes. These are making a difference to patient services and saving valuable resources.
Liverpool Primary Care Trust’s strategy of providing ‘a new health service for Liverpool’ is being helped by our latest software, EMIS Web. The project, which joins up different healthcare organisations, has been a landmark for health services during 2008.
This was recognised when Kate Warriner, its IM&T primary care programme manager, was awarded this year’s John Perry Prize from the British Computer Society's Primary Healthcare Specialist Group, which recognises outstanding contributions to primary care computing.
The team has also created a model that can help to meet the Healthcare Commission’s call for better joined-up care.
Liverpool’s strategy has seen the development of clusters of GP practices providing neighbourhood-based services. Practices are working together to treat patients outside hospital whenever possible, which makes it essential for them to be able to share information in a common format.
Liverpool’s work supports the ideas put forward in the NHS Alliance’s recent report on Integrated Care Organisations. This argues that integrated healthcare can only succeed if it is supported by integrated IT, and urged those preparing bids for ICO pilots to include robust plans in them for electronic patient records.
Technology supports people with long-term conditions
Technology can also be a vital tool in helping to treat patients with long-term conditions. This was recognised in the Kings Fund report published in October that called for greater use of technology in the NHS.
It highlighted how technology can be used to help people with conditions such as diabetes, who have regular contact with the health service. Easily accessible records are vital for monitoring their condition.
This is being demonstrated in Cheshire and Hereford, where clinicians from primary care and specialist clinics within hospitals are sharing information to gain a much fuller picture of diabetes patients’ health and to develop personal care plans.
Technology generates data for research
Technology also provides data for wider-use. The benefits of having systems which share information is the ability to use the data to search and report trends and issues. With access to anonymised data, clinicians in Hertfordshire can look at wider trends, for example to get a clearer view on metabolic variables. This information can then be used to help plan for future healthcare services and actions.
QResearch is a not-for-profit partnership between EMIS and the University of Nottingham. It has developed QSurveillance to collect, analyse and report on rates of infectious diseases as well influenza-related conditions.
With 3,500 EMIS practices participating, it provides one of the largest primary healthcare databases. This data is used by PCTs and health agencies to help them plan and develop strategies, so resources can be directed to where they are most needed – ultimately saving the health service money.
In the West Midlands, the data has been used to prepare weekly summaries of respiratory and gastrointestinal syndromes and to generate comparisons with the national picture. It has also been used by NHS West Midlands and the local government office of the regions to develop healthcare strategy.
QResearch data can further be used very specifically to react to outbreaks or incidents. Last year, the health impact of a fire at a business park in Quedgeley, Gloucester, was monitored by analysing summary health data about asthma, wheeze, conjunctivitis, and allergic rhinitis. The information was used by the National Poisons Information Service and Avon HPU to help with surveillance of adverse health effects.
All the examples above show how data is already being used to support and treat patients and prevent ill health. With the on-going trend for patients to be treated in primary care settings, and the new emphasis on wellbeing and prevention services, the mobility of patient information is becoming ever more crucial to giving clinicians the most complete picture possible.
Links
Liverpool Primary Care Trust: a new health service for Liverpool
a friend