Imagine the benefits if the NHS was able to discard paper notes and move to an integrated, all-digital records service.
For starters there would be greater convenience for patients - wherever and whenever they were receiving care. It would also pave the way for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to provide faster and more accurate diagnoses.The reality is that England’s NHS has made the commitment that “all patient and care records will be digital, interoperable and real-time by 2020.”
And, as part of these plans, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which organise the delivery of local NHS services, are now working to make sure that paper-free targets are met by the end of the decade. All of this spells good news for the NHS, its staff and its patients.
Future of healthcare
It highlights the UK government’s firm belief that improving the use of technology will work wonders for the delivery of healthcare now and in the future. And it’s putting its money where its mouth is, investing more than £4bn in IT over the next five years to help ease pressure on the frontline and create stronger partnerships between doctors and patients.
One trail-blazing programme which supports these ambitions is currently underway in London. In Islington, BT is linking up information systems currently in use by 10,000 health and social care professionals to increase levels of care for the borough’s 206,000 residents.
The company has been awarded a five-year contract to develop a secure integrated digital care record which pulls together data from information systems in different care settings into a single place. As a result, authorised health and care professionals will be able to get a more complete view of a person’s care.
Full visibility
This means clinicians and care workers in health and social care in Islington will be able to access all the data they need electronically, giving them detailed information about all their patients’ encounters with the NHS and social care - and visibility of their entire care pathway.
It’s the first time information systems in Islington in health and social care will “interoperate” - and it’s a key step towards the government’s target for all patient care records to be digital, real-time and interoperable by the end of 2020.
The new service is the largest health and social care interoperability programme of its kind in the UK, and is expected to go live in autumn 2016.
It will help to reduce errors as vital information collected about a person by one organisation, such as allergies, prescription medicines and care plans, can easily be viewed together in one place by health and care workers treating them in other organisations. This information will be presented in a secure manner on the practitioner’s device - whether it be desktop, laptop or tablet.
Tell us once
One of the key objectives from the government’s commitments is that everyone should have access to their own electronic health record which will be shared between professionals so patients will no longer have to repeat their medical history.
This is precisely what BT’s new service in Islington will do. People will have access to their own health and social care information, which will help them take part in and actively manage their long-term health and care.
They’ll be able to see information such as their test results, upcoming appointments, and also share information with clinicians and carers such as their weight and blood pressure and any over-the-counter medicines they’re taking.
Interoperability at last
Ian Dalton, president of global government and health at BT, says: “Pioneering programmes of this kind are vital in helping government and the NHS to provide interoperability between systems by 2020 to help drive efficiency and cost savings, and importantly, put people at the heart of their care.”
With users at the centre of the process, they are able to direct and co-create services according to their specific needs, for example via personalised medicine and diagnostics for health. And people-centric ICT is also key for healthcare inlessening its impact on the environment, with reduced travel and decreased use of physical healthcare facilities, which means reduced carbon emissions. As GeSI’s SMARTer2030 report notes, ICT could deliver e-health services to 1.6 billion people across the developing and developed world within 15 years.
Dalton concludes “BT continues to drive the transformation of health and social care. Projects like Islington clearly demonstrates how technology can truly transform patient care and the way it is delivered and show the power of communications to make a better world.”
Content on this page is paid for and provided by BT, sponsor of the technology and innovation hub.
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