19 June 2008
SystmOne GPs Receive Hospital Discharge Letters Electronically
Letters from hospital discharge departments can now be sent directly to SystmOne.
When a patient is discharged from hospital, a letter is sent to the GP giving them information about the patient's stay in hospital. Traditionally, this letter is faxed through to the GP practice, then scanned and attached to the patient record. That can take time and could mean that the GP sees the patient before they see the discharge letter.
For practices on SystmOne, that no longer has to be the case. With electronic discharge letters, there's no faxing, no scanning and no waiting.
When secondary care discharge departments send a letter electronically, it is automatically matched to a patient by SystmOne. As soon as the clinician logs on to the system, they can see that a letter has arrived. They then have the opportunity to view the letter, and attach Read codes or notes before the letter is filed into the patient record.
Practices in Norfolk PCT have successfully completed the project pilot, and this option could now be available to practices linked to a hospital whose system is configured to send the necessary messages.
Prospect Medical Practice, Norwich, has been processing electronic hospital discharge letters since April 2008. Mike Hall, Practice Manager, says, "We're all trying to achieve a paperless standard and handle documents as efficiently as possible, and this is one of the steps along the line. Processing hospital discharge letters electronically with SystmOne is more efficient, and the documents are instantly available to the GP, eliminating the need to scan them in. SystmOne automatically matches the letter to the patient record, and the hospital has actually made more information available to us on the electronic version."
Mike continues, "I'm all for anything that eliminates pieces of paper flying around; if it can all be done electronically, that's better. I'd encourage practices to think about using SystmOne in this way to improve their efficiency with document management."
SystmOne users who wish to receive hospital discharge letters electronically should first contact their PCT, who will liaise with the NHS Hospital Trust to find out whether this service is available. Users in Norfolk and Suffolk PCTs are already seeing the benefits and TPP hopes that others across the country will soon be able to join them.
