In our final think-piece of the year, Our Head of Service Andy Cowling looks back at the highlights of the past 12 months
Wow! Another year has flown by in the world of the Dorset Care Record (DCR) – or should I say another record breaking year in the world of the Dorset Care Record as we have seen use of the system increase in terms of average daily use from 350 per day to over 1,800 per day!
This growth can largely be attributed to the hard work of our partners in working closely with their clinical colleagues to spread the word. Particular mention should go to University Hospitals Dorset for their major push in increasing their single sign on access this year. We have also enabled single sign on access for GPs and mental health staff at Dorset HealthCare so look forward to hopefully continuing to see our numbers climb throughout 2022.
The amount of information added into the record this year has been minimal, in part due to the rapid rise last year, but also the pressures on the wider health and social care system due to the pandemic. Despite that we have managed to replace how GP information is displayed in DCR, updated our Diabetes pathway, upgraded our patient portal – myDCR – which is due to be launched across the county in 2022 and contributed to a major upgrade to a significant part of the DCR infrastructure. All are key components which will enable us to deliver the system more effectively to a wider number of people.
The Diabetes pathway will introduce a new data collection system for the Diabetes care professionals across the county and is expected to launch at Dorset County Hospital (DCH) in January 2022 with University Hospitals Dorset launching on the pathway later in the year. By sharing the same system, it means that the data can easily be shared between not only Diabetes care professionals but other health and social care teams across the county improving patient safety and the care that can be delivered.
myDCR is also expected to launch in 2022 and this will initially enable you to add family or friends to your “support network”, the electronic delivery of letters (from DCH initially), a simple way to share files with your care teams and the ability to set and monitor goals to help to improve your health in conjunction with your health and care professionals. As you might imagine we are very excited to be getting closer to that launch and are working closely with our supplier to ensure that the platform is both robust and secure.
Other statistics to share in our year include:
- Patient records accessed growing from 18,000 to 61,000 (300%+ increase)
- Pathology and radiology reports access from 3500 to over 13,000 (300%+ increase)
- Monthly logins by health and social care professionals from 12,000 to over 54,000 (400%+ increase)
I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to the DCR project management office and our colleagues at the Wessex Care Record as both teams have managed to get through a huge amount of work while maintaining a brilliant professional and “can do” attitude which has been amazing to see.
We have had a number of challenges and setbacks along the way in 2021 but I’m confident that we will see our record continue to grow, new initiatives being launched and another successful year for the DCR (… and myDCR)
Roll on 2022!!