In our final think-piece of 2023, our Head of Service Andy Cowling looks back at some of the success stories of the past year and ahead to some of the interoperability plans to further enhance the Dorset Care Record.
Well, here we are again, this is the 4th annual review that I’ve done for the Dorset Care Record (DCR) programme and – as usual – it doesn’t seem that long ago that I wrote last year’s!
Statistics:
An area where I am particularly proud is just how useful the service is being to health and social care professionals across Dorset. We can evidence that through the utilisation of the system which has grown as shown below:
- Active users: over 3,500
- Monthly patient records accessed: nearing 120,000
- Trained professionals: over 7,000
Once again, these are great numbers but only possibly with the hard work and dedication of the DCR PMO, Orion Health and our Health and Social Care partners.
Releases:
We have had 3 releases throughout the year – Release 10, 11 and 12 – and this has delivered the infrastructure and technical capability for:
Social Care:
- Documents
- Care Packages
- Relationships
All shown in a dedicated Social Care tab in the system
Mental Health
- Documents
Substance misuse information
A new “clerical administrator” role
Phase 1 of the interoperability work to allow DCR to share documents with Hampshire’s Shared Care Record (CHIE) – now pending the corresponding change in CHIE
New information:
In terms of new information we have managed to add:
- Adult Alerts from Dorset Council
- Additional document types from Dorset County Hospital and University Hospitals Dorset
We are expecting to soon have more information from our partners including:
- UHD Pathology
- Mental Health documents
- Dorset Council Relationships (Adults)
- Adult Care packages from Dorset Council
- Childrens Alerts from Dorset Council
- Substance misuse information
New organisations:
We have welcomed two of Dorset’s adult hospices on-board
Next year:
- Key component upgrades for the platform
- Substance misuse information to be populated
- BCP Council starting to share data through the platform
- Launch of interop with CHIE
Outside of the programme:
We continue to be participants in the customer-led user group and it’s sub-groups and actively look to share what we’ve learnt over the past years and months to help and support other shared care records where we can.
Team:
The team has continued to develop over 2023 – we said hello to our new project support officer Maisy and we had a DCR-baby for the first time with both Mum and baby doing really well and enjoying their time together.
We said goodbye to our communications lead, Tony McDougal earlier in the year and, more recently, we said goodbye to our Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), Peter Gill. Peter has been instrumental in setting up, supporting and championing the Dorset Care Record. I want to personally say “thank you” to Peter for his passion which helped get the programme to where it is today.
The DCR programme is fantastic to work on and I look forward to seeing where 2024 takes us.
Ends