22 May 2008
Podiatrists and Patients in North East Essex
Experience the Benefits of Electronic Records
North East Essex Podiatry services went live on SystmOne in February 2006 as part of the first group of Community services in the area to use the system. Staff started to use auto-consultations, and then in March 2008, implemented a series of templates for use across the service. Their aim for the future is to become paperlight for all new patient contacts and to computerise all diabetic patient records. The East of England SHA has worked with the podiatry team to produce the following article....
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On 17th March 2008, North East Essex PCT Podiatry Service went live with the implementation of a paperlight system utilising SystmOne. Podiatry is the first service area to go paperlight across the PCT and podiatrists and patients are already experiencing the benefits of the system.
The introduction of SystmOne templates enables staff, with the appropriate access rights, to capture all medical information in a single electronic health care record available at the point of need. The record is updated during consultation, which means that a patient’s health care record is always as up-to-date as possible.
Before the new templates, the podiatry service was using auto-consultation, which meant that staff were only able to capture a limited amount of information. Therefore part of the medical information about the patient was captured separately using paper records. Staff also had limited access to computer systems so for the majority of time, they had to share computers or wait for one to be free.
Additionally, the service opted to use the appointment facility within SystmOne. They were using a paper- based diary for appointments at each site. Because the podiatry service is split across multiple sites, this way of working made it impossible to see appointment schedules maintained within each site and it was evident that there was a need for change. Together with templates, the use of appointments within SystmOne enabled the podiatry service to store all patient information centrally. Utilising the provision within the project of more hardware, including laptops, scanners and printers resulted in a more joined-up service.
Andrew Barker, Head of Podiatry at the North East Essex PCT said, “With the old system, if a patient rang up the podiatry service for an emergency appointment and all slots were booked at that particular site, the service was unable to view schedules across the other sites to see if they had any slots available. The new ways of working allow us to offer them an appointment in an alternative location."
From a patient’s perspective, the new system has helped to improve their experience of the service. Previously for remote clinics it was difficult to transfer patient appointments as the diaries were located in the clinic and could not be viewed electronically. Now, staff can see which patients are booked in from any site that has SystmOne access instead of relying on having the paper diary available.
The system has had a huge impact on the service overall and staff are now able to access a patient’s record wherever they have access to SystmOne. They are able to formulate treatment plans, run reports and determine trends and patterns of the busier and quieter times, so that if one site appears to have more patients requesting appointments at certain times, more time slots can be allocated to that particular area. Having the system in place ensures that the service is running at its full capacity across the six sites at all times.
Andrew says, "The feedback we’ve had from patients has been really positive! They have commented on the professionalism of the service and love the fact that their treatment record is easily accessible."
The PCT is now looking at the longer term goals for patient care and will start to introduce the paperlight system to other services across the PCT. Once this has happened, there will be the ability to share information between services, moving from a paperlight to a paperless service. There are also plans for remote working in the future - where community staff will be able to visit a patient in their home using a mobile device to capture information directly.
