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NHS LONG TERM PLAN
EMR providers and the Long Term Plan
Hicom’s product manager, Jon Elburn, outlines how Electronic Medical Records providers are working together to help the NHS achieve its Long Term Plan.
The complexity of patient care often requires involvement from a number of different clinical teams and departments. In particular, in the area of diabetes, over two hundred thousand people are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes every year, so with diagnosis rates rising rapidly, integration between core and specialist systems across the NHS is vital to ensure effective resource management and improved patient care. Until relatively recently, the NHS had relied on paper based systems to record and store information. It was a method that made information sharing challenging. The introduction of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) aimed to improve the way that information was held and made available between specialist clinical teams. However, the need for joined up systems and care across multiple departments has also grown, and Trusts are now implementing technology to allow systems to send and receive disparate information via interfaces. With advances in technology,
communication and working processes have evolved to reduce manual processes of record keeping, and the introduction of EMRs has delivered operational efficiencies, accuracy and interoperability to drive better patient care – as well as helping the NHS to meet its aim of becoming fully digitised by 2024.
Motivations for integration In 2016, the Carter Report1
cited
interoperability between data systems as a key component in eliminating ‘unwarranted variation’. The report also highlighted the need for the introduction of data dashboards that integrate data from different sources and deliver real-time intelligence to
OCTOBER 2019
support operational decision-making. NHS England2
is aiming to encourage
a culture of data sharing, imploring Trusts to ‘bring together the data necessary for quality improvement and cost reduction’ and create a ‘single source of the truth’ that facilitates complex analytics to inform patient care planning. It’s clear that Trusts have taken this messaging on board, hospitals are increasingly deploying ICT strategies that integrate data from multiple clinical systems into one single view.
While a single view provides an overview
of Trust performance, the value and importance of specialist systems must not be underestimated. With services facing calls to drive productivity and efficiency, specialist systems undoubtedly have a role to play in providing valuable departmental insight. In the case of chronic diseases, there are significant gains to be made. Patients with long-term conditions
(LTCs) currently account for 50% of all GP appointments, 70% of all bed days and around 70% of acute and primary care budgets in England,3
pressure to reduce costs. Technology and innovations can play a valuable role.
Trusts are facing huge
However, it is down to Trusts to embrace this innovation to drive productivity and efficiency in LTC services.
House of Care – a framework for long term condition care
NHS England’s House of Care has been created out of a need to change the way staff deal with long term conditions (LTCs). According to NHS England, the sheer scale of the LTCs challenge for modern healthcare systems means that a shift is needed – away from the ‘medical model’ of illness (which worked efficiently in the 19th and 20th Centuries to bring down mortality and morbidity) towards a model of care which takes into account the expertise and resources of the people with LTCs and their communities. It is hoped that this will help to provide a holistic approach to patients’ care and lives, and help them achieve the best outcomes possible. The House of Care approach has been developed to provide such a model.
The 15 million people in England with long term conditions have the greatest healthcare needs of the population (50% of all GP appointments and 70% of all bed
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