Research suggests that the Dorset Care Record (DCR) has enabled efficiency savings of more than £1.4m in the first nine months of the 2021/2 financial year.
As more feeds came into the DCR and usage grew, time savings rose from £333,109 in the first quarter of the year to £586,675 in quarter three, according to the analysis.
It is projected that a total of just under £2m will be saved during the financial year from time savings and consumables, based upon the end of December DCR unique user figures.
Projected benefits by partner show that University Hospitals Dorset, covering the former Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals and Poole Hospital, is benefiting most from the savings. The acute hospital has consistently in recent months had the highest number of records accessed per month, with more than 40,000 viewed during February.
Peter Gill, DCR SRO and Director of Informatics at UHD, said he was delighted with the results, particularly as working out benefits is notoriously tricky: “I think it’s worth noting that the benefits work wasn’t easy to crack, with little to no precedent around about how to quantify the benefits of a shared care record in this kind of complex system-level programme.
Mr Gill said he expected the baseline savings to grow, as more contributions and functionality was added: “The challenge now is to look at benefits beyond simple efficiencies and to provide strong evidence to support any additional benefits identified.”
As part of the benefits work, the DCR is currently undertaking a benefits survey of its 3,600 trained users, which will feed into on-going analysis for both the established baseline figures mentioned above and new additional benefits as the programme matures.
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