16 October 2009
East Riding Patients to be First to Benefit from New Information Technology in Community Hospitals
NHS East Riding of Yorkshire has completed the implementation of the UK’s first SystmOne Community Hospital module, bringing significant advances in patient care for hospitals serving the rural communities of the East Riding.
The SystmOne software supports clinical and administrative work processes as well as patient management. For the first time community-based staff and GPs can access the same patient records from GP referral through inpatient/outpatient care to discharge in the community. The MacMillan Wolds Unit within Bridlington Hospital was the first community hospital unit to go live recently, followed by community wards in Driffield, Beverley, Hornsea and Withernsea.
SystmOne has enabled new flows of patient care, helping the district nursing and neighbourhood teams reduce the need for admission to hospital. With the patient's consent, the system allows staff to access their complete clinical records and see their past medical history as well as any medication they are taking. Any notes made are recorded and go straight into the record, delivering information to the right people at the right time.
Additional functions allow monitoring and reporting of bed management, prescribing and clinical coding. SystmOne brings a range of benefits, including avoiding duplication of information and delays to referrals. It also enhances patient safety because critical information such as drug treatments or pathology lab results are always available at the touch of a button.
The patient record system has been incorporated into the hospitals to replace paper -based records and allow more effective handovers between staff working in the community including GPs, district nurses and therapies staff. It supports the work of the multi-disciplinary neighbourhood teams serving Bridlington and Goole and the new community respiratory team due to be introduced in November 2009.
The community hospital implementation was a ‘first of type’ and NHS East Riding of Yorkshire’s Informatics Team worked with The Phoenix Partnership (TPP), developers of SystmOne, creating the new module to suit the service needs.
Head of the Informatics Services for the NHS East Riding of Yorkshire Lee Rickles said:
“Our Informatics team was involved at every stage of the project and we're extremely pleased with the results. The main drivers were to have a system that fulfils the national requirement for reporting for ICD Coding, and to introduce functionality we currently don't have, such as bed management. It made sense to look into using SystmOne in the community hospital setting because our community-based nursing teams use SystmOne and any opportunity to have shared data across services benefits patient care.”
Nick Borrill, Locality Matron for Beverley and Holderness, said:
“The system is being used by all grades of staff from the health care assistants inputting the patient’s vital signs, to the ward sister looking at overall bed management. Simplicity of the system has been the key to user involvement. We are very proud to be one of the first teams to use this in the Community hospitals”
Staff at the Bridlington Macmillan Wolds Unit have welcomed the added functionality of bed management and the overview screen. The handover screen has already improved working practice. Managing records securely has been a priority with access to patient records now ‘audit-stamped’ allowing the system operator to identify who has been viewing patient records and question any unauthorised access.
The introduction of the new system underpins NHS East Riding of Yorkshire’s ambitions to transform community services and bring care closer to home. Community Matron Maggie Bean is a champion of the scheme which helps her manage 141 patients with long term conditions being looked after in the community or home setting.
Maggie said: “SystmOne has made a huge difference to managing a large and complex caseload of patients. I know immediately if the urgent care team has visited a patient overnight and what to expect when I visit. I have developed icons that flag up if a patient has records in the home, if they are at risk of re-admission and whether their condition is stable or unstable. Integration with the therapy and rehabilitation services is a very positive development which will help us to really streamline the care offered to patients in Bridlington.”
The successful implementation has already brought some interest from other NHS organisations who want to see the system working in practice. The Informatics Team and TPP are currently working together to further develop the functionality of the care plans, prescribing and day hospital to further advance patient care on all of the community wards.
Press Release Issued by: Emma Shakeshaft, Communications Manager (external), NHS East Riding of Yorkshire 01482 672195 or 07818 405398.
