Herts Urgent Care connects to MIG

Herts Urgent Care is working with Advanced Health and Care to connect to the Medical Interoperability Gateway and access real-time patient data from three different primary care systems.

The out-of-hours care provider, which provides a GP out-of-hours service for 1.2m people, also runs NHS 111 pilot services for Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

By connecting to the MIG using the Adastra urgent and unscheduled patient management system, the Herts Urgent Care GPs will have 24-hour access to patient information including medical summaries and up-to-date details of medication from within the organisation’s urgent care services.

The non-profit social enterprise chose Advanced as its preferred MIG partner after using its Adastra 111 solution to manage over 370,000 NHS 111 calls.

Paul Gauld, head of IT at Herts Urgent Care, said linking together information from the Emis, TPP and INPS primary care systems via Adastra will allow the organisation to provide clinicians “instant access to a deeper level of patient information which wasn’t possible before”.

“This access will assist them to increase efficiency and make better informed decisions to improve patient care and reduce the knock-on effect of unnecessary repeat admissions.”

Once a clinician has obtained a patient’s permission to view the record, they will also be able to view information about historical surgical procedures, blood pressure examinations and test results.

“Patients in Hertfordshire can be reassured that they will be dealing with clinicians who have a greater understanding of their needs to ensure they receive the best possible care experience from the outset,” Gauld said.

Eleven GP practices in Hertfordshire are taking part in an initial pilot scheme lasting until March 2015, with the aim of delivering approximately 240 out-of-hours patient consultations per week.

After the pilot, 49 additional practices in Hertfordshire will follow as part of a phased roll-out of the MIG.

Advanced has been a MIG partner since 2011 when Adastra received formal accreditation to work with Healthcare Gateway’s MIG.

Jim Chase, managing director of Advanced Health and Care, said the company has worked with Healthcare Gateway on a number of projects to improve integration of care.

“We can see that the MIG delivers many benefits by delivering a secure and flexible sharing and consent model alongside the open approach to technology,” Chase said.