Better record-sharing improves healthcare for Humber area patients

01 March, 2019

Patients across the Humber are benefitting from more joined-up healthcare thanks to the roll-out of a new initiative to share information between NHS providers.

Healthcare professionals can now see up-to-date information about their patients, even if they’ve been treated somewhere else.

That’s because the two main patient record systems used across the region (EMIS Web and SystmOne) are now working together for the first time to share information.

This improves the safety and the quality of care for people accessing a number of services, including out-of-hours GP appointments, community nursing and end-of-life care.

Dr Avinash Pillai, local GP and clinical lead for the project, said: “We are delighted to be the first region in the country to successfully link these two clinical systems. This not only improves the standard of care for our patients, but also makes better use of clinicians’ time.”

“It’s the first step towards a wider ambition to provide a fully-joined up digital care record across all health and social care providers.”

Carol Waudby, Chief Operating Officer at City Health Care Partnership CIC in Hull, said: “The ability for clinicians, especially those working in urgent and unplanned care, to access the patient’s full clinical record, is key to the delivery of safe, effective and timely care.

“These initiatives are key to supporting real time sharing of key clinical information so that all clinicians consulting with patients can deliver the best possible care.

“For example, care provided by an out of hours GP can be informed by access to the full clinical record – in turn, the very next working day, the patient’s own GP can see exactly what care and support their patient has had during the out of hours period, regardless of their chosen electronic system.”

A short film has been produced to illustrate the benefits of the interoperability initiative. This can be viewed on YouTube here.