Trafford resumes use of shared EPR

Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust has restarted a programme that allows GPs and hospital-based staff to access patient information from a single electronic patient record.

The trust is using a Graphnet EPR and an advanced scheduling system from Ultragenda as the basis of a strategy to go paperlite, without using a conventional PAS.

It worked with Graphnet on a system to allow GPs and secondary care clinicians to view parts of its records and GP extracted records in a single ptient file.

However, at the end of 2007, NHS Trafford requested that access to the GP extract was withdrawn for trust consultants, doctors and pharmacists.

Stephen Parsons, head of IM&T at the trust, told eHealth Insider: “I think the cause of the problem was probably a communication issue.

“The GPs were providing information and understood that doctors were looking at it in the hospital, but the agreements probably weren’t well enough documented.

"Although it was only the clinical teams that were seeing this information, there was a suspicion that information might find its way further out into the NHS without the GPs agreeing.”

Parsons feels the uptake of the Summary Care Record and a renewed interest in shared record projects has changed users’ attitudes. The data sharing agreements have been refined and the programme is now back up and running.

“We’ve been working closely with the primary care trust and the early form of the GP consortiim, Trafford Primary Health, to start extracting data from GPs and have it appear in our EPR.

"All of the GPs across the patch have access to the system, but they… can only see the patients that belong to their practice,” he added.

“In their GP record, they will see a synopsis of the information that is being extracted.

"So, for instance the A&E summary, or the overall summary which would have significant events in someone’s life, allergies, current meds – which staff need to make the right clinical decisions."

Parsons hopes the shared record will be a key step in providing a much more integrated healthcare environment for the trust, primary care and community providers.

The idea is to make sure relevant staff are able to share necessary information to improve care pathways and prevent readmissions.

Systems similar to the one in Trafford are also in use in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and Birmingham.

Read more in Insight.