PatientSource expands to sexual and mental health sectors

Electronic patient record provider PatientSource has signed a contract with The Brandon Centre to digitise the delivery of its services.

The vendor will digitise sexual health, mental health, healthy living and parenting services for the London-based charity.

The contract marks PatientSource’s move into to the sexual health and mental health sectors, building on its client-base within acute hospitals in the NHS and whole healthcare system deployments for international clients.

Julia Brown, chief executive of The Brandon Centre, said: “As with many charities, we have limited resources and so we have to make very careful decisions regarding any capital investments.

“Investment in our clinical services always takes priority and we have come to realise that we need to invest in our clinical IT infrastructure now so as not to hold our services back and ensure that we can offer the experience that the young people we serve deserve.”

As part of its new three-year business strategy the charity is investing in new IT servers and moving to cloud-based services, as well as digitising its paper records and sexual health drop-in service using PatientSource’s bespoke services.

Michael Brooks, medical director at PatientSource, added: “We can already see the potential benefits that PatientSource can bring to The Brandon Centre in improving its work processes, making staff more efficient and freeing up valuable time for them to support the young people that need their help.”

The Brandon Centre provides free specialist contraceptive, sexual health, counselling and psychotherapy services to young people under 25 living in North London.

The Centre is also a leader in intensive community based systemic treatment for families of 8-16 year olds displaying moderate to severe behavioural difficulties, including teens who are beyond parental control and in trouble with the law.

Sam Weston, lead administrator at the charity, said: “We have a lot of paper admin at the moment. There are filing cabinets full of records across two of our sites plus warehouses full of archived records.

“We spend a lot of time entering the same information into databases. We also use a paper diary for appointments, which means we often have to ring people back if someone else is using the diary, which isn’t great in terms of the service we are offering. We are hoping that the new PatientSource systems will change all of this.”