SRC and Bluewire e-discharge summary

Tags: 24 hour target A Bluewire Technologies e-discharge SRC

24 Dec 2009

SRC and Bluewire Technologies have announced a partnership to provide healthcare organisations with web-based clinical information solutions.

The first result of the partnership is an electronic discharge summary that SRC will market and deploy to the NHS, alongside its digital dictation, voice recognition and document production products.

The partners claim the eDischarge Summary will help NHS trusts to meet next year’s target of creating and distributing discharge summaries to GPs within 24 hours.

It is already in use at West Suffok NHS Trust and is being rolled out at Ealing Hospital NHS Trust. Kevin Connolly, director of ICT at Ealing Hospitals said: “Our clinicians and pharmacists were particularly impressed with the functionality and ease of use of the solution.”

Under the terms of the partnership, SRC will market and deploy new solutions, while Bluewire Technologies will focus on development.

The SRC eDischarge Summary can be deployed as a standalone product or integrated with the WinScribe digital dictation and Nuance voice recognition solutions supplied by SRC, giving trusts the option of keyboard or dictation input.

Dr Adam Towler, Director at Bluewire Technologies said: "There are many synergies between our companies, which share similar values and a strong commitment to innovation and customer service.

“Coupling our innovative technology with SRC’s proven training, delivery and support capabilities will provide trusts with the opportunity to benefit from cost effective solutions which meet the demanding requirements of clinicians and deliver immediate productivity improvements and better patient care."

Lyn Whitfield

SRC and PCTI sign deal (03 Nov 2009) (3)

Readers Comments

who writes the discharge summaries?

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

27 Dec 09 20:16

As a GP, I'm in favour of timely - and ****good**** discharge summaries.

The problem doesn't lie with the technology but with the information available to the unfortunate junior doctor charged with producing the discharge - whether paper or electronic - at the beginning of a morning ward-round - so that the patient can be discharged before the ward-round has ended.

Does this system deprend on having the information during the patient's admission immediately available, so that all the unfortunate junior has to do is put in the discharge plan from the final ward-round? (doable) or does it mean that the information may have to be gleaned from illegible hand-written records within the same timespan?

Does the technology help in the later case?

Business Change - and good practice

29 Dec 09 09:07

Mary - I'd suggest that the problem you describe lay with the business process - not the application software.

Hospital Doctors need to organise their discharge process - there's a lot of resistance to doing this: The preference seems to be allowing the junior doctor to write up the discharge summary at the last moment - chasing paper casenotes which by then are all over the ward.

Revisiting the business processes should form part of any implementation of a new system (computer or not).

I've implemented a number of discharge summary projects and getting the Doctors to PLAN the discharge from the point of ADMISSION is like wading through syrup.

How many trusts have a policy of planning the discharge from the point of admission - and how often is this policy followed?

Also - how many of these junior’s discharge summary are checked by their consultants before the GP gets them?

My previous client's Pharmacy department had an 80% intervention rate with discharge summaries - not all serious interventions - but interventions all the same.

Admission to discharge records - and planning

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

01 Jan 10 17:33

Poster 2,

I agree with you completely: unfortunately it appears that many Trusts don't think continuity of records is important.

Surely if all Trusts used the proforma published by the RCP, life would be better - and safer - all round?