Electronic healthcare records coming to community and hospital services across north and east Devon

Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust today announced its preferred supplier for an electronic health record to support all community services, including community nursing teams across north, east and mid Devon.

Electronic health records signal the end to paper notes, referrals and forms and instead allows clinicians to access health records electronically and securely meaning patient care is safer, transition between services is smoother and the care we offer becomes much more centred on the patient and their holistic needs throughout health and social care services in Devon.

The plans to invest in technology to support home-based patient care follows HM Treasury approval earlier in the year for an £8 million investment in an electronic health record for our hospital and outpatient services (including North Devon District Hospital and all community hospitals).

Following a rigorous tender process over the last three months, Servelec’s RiO system was chosen to support community services across eastern and northern Devon. RiO offers a robust system that supports community services in a flexible way, online and offline, and has full interoperability with the InterSystems TrakCare system currently being implemented across hospital and outpatient services.

This development means the Trust will be operating a full electronic health record across all inpatient, outpatient, acute, community and home-based services, an ambition articulated in NEW Devon CCG’s information management and technology (IM&T) strategy to achieve digital integrated care records by 2018 and in line with the Government vision for a paperless NHS.

Speaking about the benefits a fully integrated electronic health record will bring Chief Executive Dr Alison Diamond said: “Joined-up, integrated health and social care is far more achievable with the IT infrastructure in place.

This development is being led by our clinicians because having access to joined-up information to support patient care will see significant benefits to patient experience and the way we deliver care.

Clinicians will have up-to-date, readily accessible health and care information, meaning patients won’t have to repeat information to different professionals involved in their care.

Mike Jones, Director of Information Management and Technology for the Trust said:

“Our existing IT system which currently supports our acute and community services is nearing the end of its useful life, and our implementation of the new systems is in time for the withdrawal of support for this system by the supplier.

“Over the last three years our clinicians have been planning the implementation of a system which will ‘talk’ to our neighbouring NHS partners and taking the time to identify where we can deliver huge benefits to patient experience and care.

“Our community teams across north, east and mid Devon are already using mobile devices to record care data on our current patient record system, so the next steps to build a robust full electronic health record system with increased functionality is a very exciting development for us.”