Emis helps send emergency patients home

An urgent care centre at the Royal Free Hospital’s A&E department is using Emis Web to conduct rapid assessments of patients, enabling it to discharge or divert 26,000 a year.

Half of the 70,000 patients who present annually at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust between 10am and 10pm are now rapidly assessed using information from the GP record held in Emis Web. 

The trust is able to discharge half of these patients at the front door with basic health advice. The remainder are directed to their own doctor, or to the GP-staffed urgent care centre for further investigation and treatment. Only 10% of assessed patients are sent on to the main emergency department.

The urgent care centre is run by Haverstock Healthcare, a federation of 37 GP practices in Camden. Medical director Dr Mike Smith explained that all of the GP practices in Camden use Emis Web and it is also deplolyed in the A&E.

“This means that when patients arrive at the door, we are able check their medical history with their consent, and make fully informed clinical decisions,” he said.

“Without their notes, there is a risk of starting patients on a care journey that is not needed. For example, we are ordering fewer x-rays and blood tests than our emergency colleagues at other hospitals. Emis Web helps make our job less time-consuming and arduous, and enables us to work more effectively.”

Smith added that the majority of patients seen at the A&E do not get sent back to their own GP, but are sent home with written information on self-care, or to a pharmacist.

The next step is to enable Emis Web to send an e-discharge letter to patients’ GPs, providing them with information about their patients’ visit to A&E.