Release 11 underway:
Our latest release is now underway and on schedule to arrive in mid-August. This latest release will including the functionality for:
- Social Care care packages and a new social care tab in the system
- Drug and Alcohol service information – initially phase 1 which is demographics, referrals and encounters
- Code set to enable the visibility of documents from our sister record – CHIE
There will be some other minor system enhancements also being delivered with this release.
DCR usage:
We have seen, again, that our usage has topped 100,000 patient views for May. We have also, for the first time, had over 3,000 distinct active users which is fantastic and shows that Dorset Care Record continues to deliver value wherever it is used.
Benefits:
We have recently reported our benefits statistics for the last financial year and we are reporting that we have generated nearly £5m in efficiency savings this has been generated in terms of time savings and also covers the significant decrease in phone calls needed to primary care as DCR holds the answers. This financial year we are hoping to report somewhere near £8m non-cash releasing benefit as usage of DCR continues to grow.
Annual user survey:
DCR users have commented that they have quicker access to data and that patients no longer have to repeat their story because the health and social care services are sharing information.
Other results from the survey highlighted that 9/10 users said the care they give to patients is improved by using the DCR and almost half said they thought there may be a risk to patient harm if the DCR is not used. The Dorset Council alerts were fed into the DCR in 2022 and 4/5 people reported how useful these are and the same number of users said they would like to see health and social care information from beyond the Dorset border in the DCR.
Coming soon:
We have an exciting summer ahead of us with the following due for delivery from our partners:
- Pathology information from our largest acute hospital trust
- Mental health clinic documents
- Social care children’s referrals for one of our local authorities