tonymcdougal

lady in mask

Hospital pharmacists help drive up use of the Dorset Care Record

tonymcdougal

Additional information around medications has led to a huge rise in hospital pharmacists using the DCR – three of the top eight users at Dorset County Hospital can be found at the Dorchester-based pharmacy.

Jiapei Ong became interested in pharmacy while talking to her cousin, a pharmacist in Malaysia. She  liked the way pharmacists worked with patients to improve their care. Jiapei then studied at Nottingham University, ahead of a pre-registration community pharmacy stint around Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire.

Jiapei moved to Dorset County Hospital last summer and is one of 20-30 pharmacists, working with patients in the wards and providing cover in the dispensary. Continue reading “Hospital pharmacists help drive up use of the Dorset Care Record” →

Victoria Park Pharmacy in Dorchester

What community pharmacy access to shared health and social care records could mean for patient care

tonymcdougal

In this blog, published in the industry periodical Pharmaceutical Journal, Dorchester pharmacist Robin Mitchell writes about the openings available to pharmacies now that they have access to the Dorset Care Record.

 

When the Dorset Care Record (DCR) launched in March 2018, it brought with it the many potential benefits of having patient information in one place and available to a broad range of health and social care professionals.

It is described as an electronic repository that provides a consolidated view of information from health and social care systems across the county of Dorset, and currently includes information from hospitals and GPs. Continue reading “What community pharmacy access to shared health and social care records could mean for patient care” →

Dorset Council logo

DCR – Providing reassurance for case support coordinators

tonymcdougal

Greater integration with health care colleagues, financial efficiencies in cash-strapped times and a reassurance that the information is correct are three benefits being accrued by using the Dorset Care Record, according to a local authority adult services employee.

Sharon Guppy, Case Support Co-Ordinator at Dorset Council, works closely with social workers and occupational therapists and has found the Dorset Care Record invaluable: Continue reading “DCR – Providing reassurance for case support coordinators” →

Wessex Care Records/Orion Health medications hackathon

Hacking further towards medications interoperability in the UK

tonymcdougal

Orion Health has been an ardent supporter of INTEROPen, a collaborative group created to unite suppliers and the NHS in the pursuit of interoperability, since its creation in 2016. On July 14th-15th, the company joined forces with Wessex Care Records to take part in the latest hackathon centred on medications interoperability. Here’s what was learnt:

The first morning of the hackathon kicked off with introductory presentations from INTEROPen, OneLondon, Wessex LHCR and NHSX. David Hancock, INTEROPen industry co-chair opened with a reflection on INTEROPen’s journey since 2016, and its continued importance as an organisation in balancing the demand push and the supply pull for interoperability in healthcare. He reflected that INTEROPen is still going strong four years on due to the complexity of the challenge, quoting Bob Wachter, “implementing health IT today is one of the most complex adaptive changes in the history of healthcare, and perhaps of any industry. Adaptive change involves substantial and long-lasting engagement between the leaders implementing the changes and the individuals on the front lines who are tasked with making them work.*” With INTEROPen’s mix of both vendor and NHS leadership and membership, the organisation is uniquely placed to encourage testing and adoption of emerging standards across the board. Continue reading “Hacking further towards medications interoperability in the UK” →

Case studies come from a range of Our Dorset partners

Case study analysis: Why partners are using the DCR and how they are benefitting

tonymcdougal

With 1,700 trained health and social care professionals now able to use the Dorset Care Record (DCR) and 11,400 records accessed last month, we’ve been looking at the areas where partners find real benefits and highlighting comments made in recent case studies.

Preliminary analysis over the past few months has shown that the DCR is widely used by pre-admittance and pre-op clinicians and by specialist respiratory, kidney and heart consultants across our three acute hospitals.

Across our two local authorities, there is also consistently heavy use from Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard teams as well as occupational therapists, physiotherapists and social workers.

Additional information to help professionals better understand people’s medical history and current situation and quicker, more up to date details, enabling better coordinated and safer care, are often cited as reasons for people using the DCR.

Here are some comments from partner case studies from across the Our Dorset partnership: Continue reading “Case study analysis: Why partners are using the DCR and how they are benefitting” →

Engagement leaflet

Dorset Care Record Stakeholder Update – July 2020

tonymcdougal

Over the next month, community and mental health records from Dorset HealthCare University NHS Trust (DHC) are being fed into the Dorset Care Record (DCR).

Demographic information, which includes the name, date of birth, address, next of kin, NHS number and ethnicity of Dorset’s residents and inpatient and outpatient (attendance) details held by Dorset HealthCare are the first records to go live.

Continue reading “Dorset Care Record Stakeholder Update – July 2020” →

Healthwatch Dorset logo

Better sharing of health records between NHS and care services – a consumer view

tonymcdougal

In our latest blog, Healthwatch Dorset’s manager Louise Bate considers the feedback the organisation gathers from local people and the benefits of joined up health and social care records

Healthwatch Dorset offers an independent way for local people to ask questions about health and social care services and give their feedback. We’re a small team – 4 members of staff, plus a fantastic group of 120 volunteers working across the county. We use all the feedback we gather, through community engagement, social media, press, events and focus groups to improve local services. You can read more about our work in our latest Impact Report: https://healthwatchdorset.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/HWDorset-Annual-Report-2019-20-finalLr2.pdf

Continue reading “Better sharing of health records between NHS and care services – a consumer view” →

BCP Council logo

Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) goes live with Single Sign On for Dorset Care Record

tonymcdougal

One of our local authority partners, Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP), has today introduced Single Sign On for staff accessing Dorset Care Record (DCR) information.

All current DCR users who have access to Mosaic (adult services system) have – since earlier this spring – been able to send demographic information as an electronic feed into the DCR.

Now, they will be able to go straight into the DCR system at a touch of a button. Launching DCR with user and person context will save professionals time, with one click getting to the relevant record. It will ensure that people will have a safe and slick journey through the service and will only have to “tell their story once”. Continue reading “Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) goes live with Single Sign On for Dorset Care Record” →

Dorset Council logo

How Dorset Council’s Mental Capacity Act team are using the Dorset Care Record

tonymcdougal

The Mental Capacity Act (MCA) came into force in 2007. It is designed to protect and restore power to those vulnerable people who may lack capacity to make certain decisions, due to the way their mind is affected by illness or disability, or the effects of drugs or alcohol. The MCA also supports those who have capacity and choose to plan for their future.

We asked the MCA team at Dorset Council how the Dorset Care Record  (DCR) is helping them in their day to day work and here are their replies:

Val: “It has been useful to check on whether people have been discharged from hospital as it has the information very quickly. I was also recently able to find out that a person who moved out of our area had died… and was still on our Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) waiting list. This information was not on Mosaic (Dorset Council’s adults system), so I was able to click straight onto the DCR tab for the update. Also (it) can confirm a diagnosis has been made of a mental disorder, eg. dementia and when.”

Continue reading “How Dorset Council’s Mental Capacity Act team are using the Dorset Care Record” →

David Way

Tips for video-conferencing in a Covid-19 world

tonymcdougal

We are all using social media and video conferencing tools to communicate with friends, family and work in the Covid-19 era. Our Information Governance lead David Way highlights some tips to help us work more securely online

I joined the programme board of the Dorset Care Record just under two years ago having recently started work at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust as their Information Governance manager and Data Protection Officer.

It was an interesting time to join the project as the big changes in data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, as it is better known, had come into place. There was a need for the project to ensure it was compliant with GDPR and the new Data Protection Act 2018.

Continue reading “Tips for video-conferencing in a Covid-19 world” →