Kent Community Health sexual health service goes live with EPR

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust’s sexual health service has implemented an electronic patient record (EPR) from specialist sexual health and HIV software provider, Inform Health.

The EPR went live in April 2024, following a three-month timeline for procurement, configuration, user acceptance testing and training.

In a press release from the trust, Sue Bunn, commercial director at Inform Health, said: “Kent Community Health is now in a stronger position to rise to the challenges faced by all sexual health services, accommodate increasing demand and ensure that efficiency, patient access, and health outcomes remain at the heart of service delivery.”

Kent Community Health said that since implementation, the new clinic-based system has been helping to transform daily operations by supporting best clinical practice, improving patient access, increasing efficiency and giving enhanced visibility over performance.

Leah Elliott, clinical services manager at Kent Community Health’s sexual health service, said: “The true champions of this story are the people, our IT and sexual health teams and the team at Inform Health, who have worked together, against tight timeframes and evolving requirements, to get the job done and maintain service continuity for patients.

“Inform Health have understood and shared our vision from the start, partnering to bring our plans to fruition and create a stable and efficient system that will better enable us to uphold our service’s outstanding rating long into the future.”

Kent Community Health is planning the launch of a patient-facing personal health record (PHR) system in its sexual health service by the end of 2024, which will allow to patients create a secure online profile, and search for, book, cancel and amend appointments online.

In the future, its is considering enhancements such as automated sexually transmitted infections result notification, secure direct messaging, and a healthcare partner module.

In July 2023, Essex Sexual Health Service and Thurrock Sexual Health Service announced that social enterprise Provide, which delivers the clinics’ sexual health services, had implemented Inform Health’s PHR.