Respiratory consultant and general physician at Dorset County Hospital (DCH) William McConnell believes the Dorset Care Record will make a real difference for both healthcare professionals and patients.
Until now, Dr McConnell has felt frustrated by not having information at the touch of a button: “Unfortunately, we’re used to having to apologize to patients due to a lack of information that we have. Patients come expecting us to have all their records and are surprised when we say we don’t. This means that sometimes we don’t always have details, for example, of medications tried in the past.”
Dr McConnell says the advent of the Digital Patient Record (DPR) at DCH is a considerable development in the right direction but by going straight from the DPR to the DCR in one click through Single Sign On, life has become much easier.
“It is so unusual to have an IT solution that works and makes our lives better and easier. I’ve been using it for patients in clinics to check their past medical history and their current medications as well as other things that I need.
“It is very useful being able to check if they are using medication and treatment correctly – for inhalers for asthma. And the other thing we commonly link to and look at is spirometer records (how much air you can breathe out in one second). Often we don’t have access to it but it’s a quality indication for us and really important that we have this available.”
Looking ahead, Dr McConnell is keen to have more pathways available through the DCR, building on the clinical maternal pathways that went live earlier this year. Diabetes, respiratory and cardiology pathways would really help, he said.
He likes the easy accessibility of the DCR, which saves him time and provides patients with additional confidence.
Dr McConnell has been working at DCH since 2001 but he has outpatient clinics at Weymouth Community Hospital, Bridport Hospital and a GP surgery in Weymouth. Normally, he has to move across multiple systems to get all the information he needs, but having one log-in through SSO is really beneficial for his specialist respiratory integration work.
“Often IT systems don’t talk to each other so it’s very refreshing to find something that allows us to work in a more integrated way,” he added.
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