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SCOTTISH HEALTHCARE


Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon recently launched a new eHealth strategy which will guide the development and implementation of connected health systems over the next six years. Adam Hewitt reports.


T


he Scottish Government has published its new eHealth strategy for NHSScot- land, covering the period 2011-2017.


It covers a six-year period, longer than its predecessor strategy which ran from 2008-2011, although the Government has pledged to “review and refresh” the strat- egy in 2014.


Collaborative working


The Scottish Government is also keen to emphasise the extent to which the strat- egy has been drawn up with the NHS, not just imposed from above. The document says: “The strategy has been agreed with NHSS. It is not a top down mandated set of tasks but an agreed direction and set of goals. Where it mandates it does so because NHSS has agreed with the Scottish Govern- ment that joint action is the most appropri- ate way forward.”


In her ministerial foreword to the docu- ment, Nicola Sturgeon, deputy first minis- ter and Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well- being and Cities Strategy, said: “Our vision for 2017, and this second eHealth Strategy for NHSScotland, is ambitious; it has the citizen at the centre and seeks to build on the significant progress we have made over the course of the last three years. Rather than focusing on products and technology, we will instead look to the benefits and out- comes experienced by the people of Scot- land flowing from eHealth enabled service re-design and quality improvements.


“This latest eHealth Strategy provides NHSScotland’s Boards with the opportuni- ty to drive eHealth enabled improvements from closer to the front line of service de- livery and to align eHealth more closely with the improvement planning processes already in place.”


So far, so good


The document also reviews progress on earlier goals, such as delivering new Patient Management Systems (PMS), new national GP IT solutions and clinical portal technol- ogies, and the national Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS).


The five boards that selected the TrakCare PMS report back in glowing terms in the re-


Nicola Sturgeon


port, with Stephen Kettlewell, Consultant Vascular Surgeon/Deputy Clinical Direc- tor at NHS Lanarkshire, quoted as saying: “Just started using TrakCare this morning at my clinic. Admittedly it took us about half an hour to work it out, but now we are flying. It’s absolutely brilliant. It’s re- ally easy to use, takes only a few seconds to complete and, best of all, you can see on a single screen exactly who you’ve still to see, whether they’ve arrived, whether you’ve done the outcome etc. And hats off to the IT guys who were around to hold our hands. At first I was blind, but now I can see...”


Paul Leonard, consultant in Emergency at St Johns Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, added: “It is difficult to imagine how we would man- age without it.”


Other advances documented include the Chemotherapy Electronic Prescribing and Administration System (CEPAS) that be- gan operation at the Beatson West of Scot- land cancer hub in December 2010, before being rolled out to four west of Scotland Boards over the course of this year.


The report also praises the 2008 imple- mentation of Electronic Transfer of Pre- scriptions (ETP) between GP practices, community pharmacies and Practitioner Services Division (PSD), adding: “This is the first live national system to fully sup- port ETP in the UK.”


Social care


It also looks ahead to a time when eHealth can help with the integration of health and social care services, explaining: “Together with colleagues in the local authorities, NHSS will develop an IT strategy that not only focuses on health and social care col- laboration and integration, but that clearly articulates the technical developments that will be necessary. This will place greater em- phasis on partnership working, the need to develop information sharing systems across health and social work to support the deliv- ery of appropriate community based ser- vices, and to ensure information is available across health, social services and the third sector to support care for individuals.”


There are five main strategic aims in the document: supporting people to commu- nicate with NHS Scotland; contributing to the integration of care; improving the safety of medicines; enhancing the availability of information for staff; and maximising the most efficient work practices. Sturgeon said: “By the end of 2014 I expect NHSScotland to make significant progress across all five areas and to have delivered the nine short term goals which are major steps on the path towards our bold vision for eHealth enabled healthcare services.”


FOR MORE INFORMATION The full strategy document is at: tinyurl.com/ScotlandEhealth


national health executive Sep/Oct 11 | 61


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