New Graphnet tech for Hants record

A county that pioneered record sharing a decade ago has successfully updated the technology that underlies the project.

Hampshire has moved the Hampshire Health Record off Graphnet V1, an early portal product first deployed in 2004, and onto the CareCentric software from the same company.

All of the existing interfaces and bespoke documents were ported into the new system.

At the same time, improvements were made to give clinicians an improved data interface, to create customised document summaries for different care settings, and to create a system of alerts for key events.

A statement from Graphnet said CareCentric also improves integration with local IT systems, including the GP systems Vision 360 and Emis Web.

Toby Cave, IT systems manager at NHS South CSU, said the deployment of the replacement system had been a major undertaking. “We now look forward to using the new features in CareCentric to support patient care.”

The Hampshire Health Record has a long history. Hampshire and Isle of Wight strategic health authority was an Electronic Record Implementation Programme (ERDIP) demonstrator, in the years before NPfIT was set up.

When the national programme was created, the SHA applied its experience to creating a shared record as a contribution to the ‘integrated care records service’ outlined in the strategy that preceded it, ‘21st Century IT.’

The national programme eventually set up a programme to create its own shared record, the NHS Summary Care Record, but Hampshire has never deployed this.

In 2009 it said explicitly that it would not implement the SCR, but expand its own record instead.

The Hampshire Health Record now combines data from 145 GP practices, three acute trusts, two community trusts and an independent treatment centre, and can be used by clinicians in all care settings.

The data it contains includes activity/contacts, medications, assessments, care plans, discharge summaries, results, referrals, clinical letters, alerts, allergies and Read-coded GP data.

Catherine Dampney, chief information officer for NHS South CSU, said: “The HHR provides the core, integrated record for nearly two million patients and is therefore a major resource for Hampshire clinicians.

“The CareCentric deployment gives us the tools we need to take the project to the next level, bringing in many more users and uses for the system.”

The next step is to integrate data from the Northgate Swift social care system in use locally. This should happen later this year.

Andy Bratt, managing director of Graphnet said the record is “an excellent example of how a shared record can be created across a large health community.”

“Hampshire has done a fantastic job of managing data sharing agreements with so many organisations. We are delighted it has moved to our latest product set.”