Orion deploys new national diabetes pathway in Northern Ireland

Orion Health has rolled out a new diabetes pathway in Northern Ireland as part of the country’s national shared care record project.

Following a successful pilot with a small number of nurses, consultants and podiatrists, the service can now be accessed by all diabetes clinicians across Northern Ireland, to help inform the care of more than 100,000 patients in the country.

The new pathway allows clinicians involved in the treatment of diabetes patients to access more accurate data when needed. Supported by the Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record (NIECR), the system removes the need to re-enter data and allows information to be shared between trusts.

In doing so, the system helps improve engagement between health professionals from different disciplines and ensures from different places in the care system can be used to inform and improve the treatment of patients.

Dr Roy Harper, senior endocrinologist of South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, said: “With diabetes diagnoses now double what they were 20 years ago in the UK, the requirement for high quality and timely diabetes treatment is imperative.

“The new Diabetes Pathway provides clinicians such as myself with this level of information allowing us to be proactive in our care and provide a much better journey for patients, increase their confidence in the treatment plan and improved outcomes in the long run.”

According to Orion, one of the most common complaints from patients was the continual need to repeat their symptoms and conditions to every clinician they met.

The new diabetes pathways also allows clinicians to factor in unrelated conditions into patients’ treatment plan.

Previously, clinicians had to use separate systems for paediatric and adult patients and information could not be accessed from one trust to the next.  As such, information had to be re-entered, making it difficult to record trends in patient conditions and making reporting at a national level “virtually impossible.”

Gary Birks, general manager UK & Ireland for Orion Health, said: “We are delighted the new Diabetes Pathway is now live and being used by the multi-disciplinary group of medical professionals involved in caring for patients living with diabetes.

“The Pathway builds upon the rich clinical data available within the NIECR, such as real-time laboratory results, and allows clinicians to access this information easily in one place leading to more effective and efficient patient care.

“This includes professionals who have often sat on the periphery of information sharing, such as podiatrists.”