Wirral rolls out electronic ordering to GPs

GP practices across Wirral and surrounding areas in North-west England are due to rollout a new electronic ordering system for laboratory tests.

Wirral Remote Order Communications System (WROCS) was piloted in four practices between March and May. Wirral Health Informatics Service says plans are now underway to fully implement WROCS to Wirral’s 60 GP practices plus three in Ellesmere Port and Neston by the end of 2006. In the future GPs will also be able to make radiology requests through the system for tests such as as x-ray and ultrasound.

The programme directly passes test requests electronically to Wirral Hospital NHS Trust’s laboratory IT system, removing the use of handwritten forms. It also reduces the number of unprocessed samples due to incompatible patient details. This in turn means patients are not inconvenienced with supplying additional samples.

Angela Kennedy, senior projects manager at Wirral Health Informatics Service, said: “WROCS is based on a user-friendly template that can be adapted to accommodate protocols or personal preference. For example GPs can add information about special requirements for tests and where samples can be taken.

“Most laboratory tests can be ordered and GPs can track tests to see if the laboratory has received them, and benefit from improved accuracy of ordering.

“Results are automatically sent to the individual practice’s clinical system and that of the trust, as well as being stored on the Wirral Electronic Health Record (EHR). This provides easy access to information for all relevant healthcare professionals.”

She added: “A major benefit is that hospital consultants will be able to access laboratory results taken by their GP, aiding the patient journey. This joined up approach will improve efficiency by reducing the amount of duplicate testing and build on the comprehensive information database of EHR.”