Our team have been working closely and at pace with Wessex Care Records and Orion Health to introduce a GP Connect standard to replace the current MIG primary care system. Ian Haywood, Wessex Care Records’ business analyst talks about some of the benefits associated with the changes in our latest blog.
Having access to Primary Care (GP) data is a significant part of why the DCR is so useful to clinicians. Since its inception, the DCR has accessed GP information via an interface provided by Healthcare Gateway, known as the MIG, and this has been hugely successful in providing a level of information previously inaccessible to many Health and Social care clinicians.
In recent years NHS Digital, and with the creation and support of NHSX, has pushed the interoperability agenda further, with a huge amount of focus on better enabling primary care information to be shared with other NHS and Social Care organisations to support direct care.
These interoperability advancements led to the development of the GP Connect standards, an approach and set of data that primary care system vendors must adopt, and which other system vendors in the Health and Care market can use to consume information. GP Connect therefore made what was historically quite a complex data sharing landscape, a far easier and more accessible thing.
For the Dorset Care Record, adopting the GP Connect standard is part of the commitment made as part of its role within the Wessex Care Records (WCR), one of the first national Local Health and Care Records (LHCR). LHCR programmes have been challenged to continually review and implement the latest interoperability standards, enabling information sharing both locally and nationally, and DCR has continually shown its commitment towards this.
GP Connect is in many ways a like for like replacement; however a number of benefits have been identified;
- The GP Connect standard is evolving, and as such new information is continually being added.
- There is a broader level of information exchanged
- Information is richer, with more detailed notes and readings.
This is just the first part in the DCRs journey with GP Connect, as we look to a future in which we can start to exchange information such as Medications across multiple partners in real time, enabling a far more cohesive and safer patient experience.
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