System C this week launches its new shared record software, which allows Medway EPR users, GPs and other care professionals to build a single patient record across a care community.    

Medway CareCentric is a key tool for acute Trusts in breaking down barriers in care provision and in supporting radical new delivery models, as envisaged in The NHS Five Year Forward View published by NHS England last week.   

The software combines the data collected in Medway and other local systems into a single digital care record which can be shared across a health and social care community. So CareCentric gives acute clinicians immediate and seamless access to GP, community, mental health and social care records. It also allows the GPs and care professionals to see their patients’ acute records, including results and correspondence.  

The result is a rich record for each patient available at the point of care throughout the care community. The ability to see comprehensive clinical notes at the touch of a button allows clinicians to improve the quality and speed of decision-making in all care settings. This helps deliver a wide range of benefits including reduced hospital admissions and waiting times, reduced length of stay and a reduction in repeat investigations. The solution also supports collaborative assessment and treatment across organisations.

Medway CareCentric is a version of the CareCentric shared care record software developed by Graphnet Health. This variant is developed specifically for users of the Medway EPR. It is embedded in the heart of Medway, and gives single-sign-on access to a wider integrated digital record. It includes “out of the box” interfaces for all MedWay PAS and clinical modules so it can be deployed in a fraction of the time and effort required for a standard shared care record.

Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, said this was a key strategic tool for acute Trusts in developing new models of care designed around the needs of the patient.

“Caring for patients across organisations is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s NHS and is central to the agreed vision of the NHS’ future. Getting information out of silos is a key requirement for seamless patient care.   

Medway CareCentric breaks down the barriers to sharing healthcare data, and improves clinical collaboration around the documented needs of each patient.”

The NHS Five Year Forward View referred specifically to the need for new models of care, highlighting in particular integrated hospital and primary care providers, and the provision of out of hospital care by combined multi-specialty community groups, including hospital specialists.

Medway CareCentric means that:  

• Hospital clinicians can see a patient’s primary care history from within the hospital record. This includes demographics, diagnoses, treatments, medications, allergies, results, disease register, co-morbidities and family history.
• GPs can view hospital records for the patient they are consulting without having to load a new system. This includes demographics, referrals, attendances (inpatient/outpatient, A&E), waiting lists, medications, alerts, allergies, pathology results and radiology reports.  
• Medway CareCentric can also be used as a single source of shared data where clinicians are operating services across multiple Trusts. So for example, clinicians seeing a patient as an outpatient in one Trust and operating on that patient in another will be able to see records from both Trusts.
• Medway Carecentric supports the addition of and sharing of data from other sources and care settings including community, social care, mental health, out of hours services and ambulances.

In addition, the creation of a local shared care record enables staff across primary, secondary and community care to collaborate on assessments and care plans. This greater cooperation between teams improves efficiencies within patient pathways and enables patients, particularly those with long term conditions, to receive better care in the appropriate setting and reduce unnecessary re-admissions to A&E.

About CareCentric
Medway CareCentric is based on the CareCentric shared care solution from Graphnet Health. It is an out of the box solution, preconfigured to accept data from Medway PAS/EPR and to present it to users in other care settings. CareCentric’s web portal presents users with a unifed view of the data held in the single care record.

The software has also been fully integrated within Medway so that Medway users can look up GP data for the patient they are currently looking at, without having to log into a separate system or reselect the patient record. It has also been pre-configured to take data from GP systems such as EMIS Web and InPS Vision.

Other health and social care systems can be added by connecting them using CareCentric’s standard interface formats. CareCentric connects to most of the leading health and social care systems including RiO, Liquidlogic (adult and children’s systems).

Graphnet’s CareCentric is an established and well-proven solution. Its 45 deployments range from single Trusts to large-scale health communities covering 2 million patients.  

The Hampshire Health Record is Graphnet’s largest CareCentric installation, assembling into a single record data from over 150 GPs, 3 acute Trusts, community, mental health and social care.

Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust uses CareCentric as an electronic record system within the Trust, and has 5,000 users across clinical networks, GP practices, social services, community teams and community hospitals as well as in the acute hospital.