Scottish board builds shared care record

NHS Dumfries and Galloway is creating an electronic shared care record to integrate primary and secondary care data.

The Scottish health board is using the CareCentric software from Graphnet to build the integrated care record, which will be an extension of its already existing care record.

It has also integrated GP data from Emis Web into the Graphnet software to allow sharing of information between primary and secondary care data.

The health board’s head of information management and technology Graham Gault said it is looking to create a “modern model of integrated care.”

“We want to provide clinicians access to all the information they need about a patient when and where they need it. We see this as the key to providing efficient, joined-up services centred around the needs of the patient,” he said.

In 2012 the health board deployed an electronic document management system from the Plumtree Group in its mental health services, with two years’ worth of records on 5000 of its patients being scanned into the shared care record.

This is now being rolled out across Dumfries District General Hospital and Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.

The health board has developed a range of data feeds to provide access to acute and mental health records as well as admissions data, clinic lists, patient alerts and in- and outpatient appointments.

These are imported with a real-time feed from the Royal Infirmary’s Topas patient administration system from Cambric.

Gault said that the next step is to introduce electronic forms, which will replace more than 500 paper forms.

Dumfries and Galloway is also talking with social care providers to integrate social work information into the record.

The health board is building a new infirmary, due to open its doors in 2018, which has no facility for storing paper case notes.

The Graphnet software is widely used in the NHS in England, but this is the company’s first win in Scotland. Symphony Technology Group announced last week that it has bought a 40% share in the company, quickly after it also acquired McKesson’s UK healthcare business.