One year after demographics from the three acute hospitals and GP Summary Care Records came on stream in the Dorset Care Record, Communications Officer Tony McDougal looks back at progress over the past 12 months.
One of the key facets of health and social care records is the understanding that sharing data saves lives. This was substantiated just a few days after we went live last February. The Beast from the East affected Dorset badly with some of the heaviest snow and coldest temperatures in recent years.
A Borough of Poole local authority early adopter reported that he broke the seal on a record: There was an adult that we were worried might be in danger due to care workers not being able to gain entry because of the adverse weather.
“I noticed that there was an alert on CareDirector that the adult was in hospital, but I accessed DCR and confirmed that the adult was not still in hospital so could still be at risk. This was a lot easier than having to call up the hospital or GP teams, and saved us a lot of crucial time. In the end, the adult was OK, but in different circumstances being able to access DCR could have had a big positive impact in efforts to safeguard.”
It is cases like this where the DCR is making a difference – enabling practitioners involved in people’s care having a better understanding of their situation, being able to make clear decisions about care as well as having accurate contact details.
The DCR has grown steadily over the past 12 months. Some of the highlights include:
- Alerts and encounters from the three acute hospitals – Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch, Poole and Dorset County Hospital
- Radiology from the three acutes
- Pathology from Dorset County Hospital
- The establishment of two cohorts – the Better Births maternity and the cancer follow up pathways – that have been identified to trial the Citizen Portal due to the frequent interaction and high level of correspondence between service users and clinicians.
- Being chosen with Hampshire (Wessex) to become one of the pilot Local Health and Care Record Exemplars.
There is still plenty of work to do, particularly as local authority adult and children’s service records are due to come on stream in the next few months. We have been laying the ground by attending more than 120 events over the past 18 months, including roadshows, stands at stakeholder and partner events, talks to parish councils and race and equality groups.
Taking people with us on the journey is vital, which is why we’ve sent out information leaflets to every household in the county and interviewed more than 600 people about their thoughts on consent, security and the benefits of the DCR.
But the last word should be from our partners, without whom we wouldn’t have got past the starting line. One Senior Consultant at Dorset County Hospital said:‘I am very happy with it – it has helped me get to grips with medication lists in particular and thus prevented mistakes.”
Sharing data saves lives…