One Patient, One Record for Kirklees PCT
This article first appeared in the NHS Yorkshire and the Humber Newslink.
Pictured above: The team at Kirklees celebrating the implementation of the SystmOne Community and Child Health system: Becky Summers, Richard Heywood, Elaine Gomersall, Ian Wightman and Andrew Cocking.
Kirklees Primary Care Trust is making the vision of a more modern, patient-led NHS a reality. With the support of The Health Informatics Service (THIS), the PCT is now looking forward to celebrating the implementation of the LSP solution (SystmOne) in all their Community and Child Health Services. This is an exciting time with roll out to the last team expected to commence by September 2008.
SystmOne was introduced as the LSP solution into the former north of Kirklees Primary Care Trust as part of a community and child health project to implement the NPfIT programme which initially involved 28 GP Practices. After the merger of three former PCTs in October 2006, the number of practices doubled to 74. The project includes District Nursing, Health Visiting, Speech and Language Therapy, the whole range of therapy teams, GPwSI and specialists services such as podiatric surgery, dermatology, MSK and CASH.
This huge project commenced in May 2006 and the first phase is due to be completed in December 2008. Spanning 50 sites and 28 services, there are now over 800 clinicians and support staff using the LSP SystmOne Community solution in Kirklees.
The previous system had limited clinical use and the introduction of SystmOne was seen as a way to provide a more complete patient record and steer the PCT towards more responsive patient care. Equipment and buildings were also outdated and it was a huge undertaking to modernise systems. The system implementation was greatly assisted by 5 brand new state-of-the-art health centres being built in the area with modern facilities.
Podiatry was invited to be the first community department to “go live” and is now virtually paper-free. Linda Meeson, Podiatry Service Manager said: "Being supported by a friendly, helpful and knowledgeable IT service has enabled us to implement this project successfully. We have formed an operational users group to support departmental colleagues across the PCT and everyone has worked hard to achieve success. We recognise that this is just the start of improved patient care delivery. With growing confidence in, and knowledge of the system, we expect to introduce further features in the future.’
The Musculoskeletal service at Kirklees is also making innovative use of new technology and using SystmOne to great effect, boosted by their use of digital tablets called Digimemos. This simple device digitally captures writing or drawing on ordinary paper. The tablets are currently being used by clinical staff to upload freehand images and sketches and attaching them to the live SystmOne patient record. This paperless system has great benefits including easy sharing of information which is available at the touch of a button. Clinicians are able to quickly store their short-hand notes within SystmOne saving both time and effort. The service is paving the way for a completely paperless system, and is looking at Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) and other NPfIT products for the future.
Andrew Cocking, Corporate & Primary Care IT Programme Manager said: “The Digimemo is a very cost effective method of capturing clinical information. It offers real advantages, primarily allowing clinicians to extend and subsequently share the LSP solution patient record and opening up new ways of collaborative working. We are also planning to utilise this device for our district nursing service, as an excellent solution for leaving a hard-copy at the patient’s home and recording the same data within the LSP solution.”
Implementing the Community system was made smoother by having the whole implementation team housed together on one site at Dewsbury Health Centre. Being in the thick of it based in a busy health centre meant that the team could keep their finger on the pulse and made them more accessible to staff to deal with queries quickly.
Andrew Cocking said: “Getting the right information, at the right place, to the right people, at the right time is a priority. By using the LSP solution we have made this happen.”
Benefits of the system for the staff are numerous. Release 3.01 of SystmOne will allow enhanced sharing between GPs and community services such as District Nursing or Podiatry. Community and Child Health will also be able to share records with the local hospital. In the future when a patient presents at A&E the consultant will be able to see with consent, the patient’s GP record, providing a real-time view of medical history, allergies and any previous interventions. If the patient also had a long term condition such as diabetes, records from the Diabetic Service could also be viewed.
The project was a joint effort with the Primary Care Trust and The Health Informatics Service working hard to make it happen. Feedback has been extremely positive and all involved with the project have achieved excellent results. Having laid the foundations the PCT plans to build on this by implementing more systems to open up sharing.
Ian Wightman, Assistant Director of IT at Kirklees PCT concludes: “I am delighted at the excellent progress we have made. We had an effective project team who really gelled together and worked to an extremely high standard to deliver this project. We are proud to have pulled off such a large scheme to an excellent standard.”
