Here is our usual end of year review by our Head of Service, Andy Cowling. He takes a look back at some of the highlights of 2024.
It’s December again so that means the regular annual update from me for the Dorset Care Record (DCR) – my 5th review! I can’t believe how quickly that has come around.
Continue reading “Dorset Care Record – Review of the Year 2024”
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!
Continue reading “Dorset Care Record – Review of the Year 2023”
Our communications and engagement manager Tony McDougal has been involved with the Dorset Care Record since its launch 5 years ago. In his farewell piece, he highlights the triumphs and frustrations encountered on the shared care record’s journey.
It’s been an amazing five years. A privilege to provide the communications, engagement and at times, training, for our shared care record. There have been many mountains to climb. Valleys to tumble into. But buoyed by an incredibly resilient and supportive team, we have become a mature and sought-after care record.
It hasn’t always been so. We hadn’t, perhaps naively, anticipated issues around consent. Every partner had a different opinion. Council adult services, well versed in asking for consent every time they saw a patient, were at odds with acute hospitals Emergency Departments. ED clinicians said it was impossible to ask for consent for someone being carried in unconscious on a Friday night. Continue reading “Keeping eyes on the goal…”
In our final think-piece of 2022, 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
I can’t believe that it has been 12 months since I was asked to write the last one of these – time certainly flies in the world of the Dorset Care Record (DCR).
First off, let’s look at some of our key statistics for the year:
These statistics will grab the headlines and myself and the team are rightly proud of them but they don’t tell the whole story – just the end results of all of the hard work that the PMO, Orion Health and our partners put into the programme every day. Continue reading “Dorset Care Record – Review of the Year 2022”
Our test manager Georgina Hulbert gives an insight into life at the heart of the DCR PMO
07:00 Wake-up, school run, coffee, nerdle….. ready to tackle the day as a test nerd as part of the Dorset Care Record (DCR) Programme Management Office (PMO). For anyone not 100% clear, the definition of ‘nerd’ is – NOUN….a foolish person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious. Seems a little harsh to me, but I do love testing!
08:30 There are usually some regular tasks to take care of first thing, aided and abetted by the team of brilliant Business Analysts who support the testing. Monitoring known issues in our test environment for example to try and establish a pattern and fix a problem. Issues that take time and patience to resolve. The satisfaction when we achieve a breakthrough is very gratifying. Continue reading “A Day in the Life of a Test Nerd…”
The theme of the Orion Health customer conference in Bristol earlier this month was on building on the shared care records to make healthcare more efficient for organisations and clinicians, to coordinate care for patients and to move towards population health management approaches. Our Communications lead Tony McDougal reports.
Covid-19 has accelerated changes and the digitalisation of healthcare with a strong focus on data to improve the health and care experience for both clinicians and patients.
Newly appointed Orion Health Chief Executive Officer Brad Porter said around the world, countries were releasing data strategies that focus on the need to make healthcare more equitable and accessible to those who it need it most. Continue reading ““Ensuring the right patient gets the right care in the right place at the right time..””
In our latest think-piece, Dorset Council’s Chief Executive Matt Prosser highlights how our shared care record is helping people get the right treatment by the right person at the right time.
Today I had the privilege of spending some time with members of the Dorset Care Record (DCR) team, like many partnerships they are drawn from a wide range of host organisation, from acute hospitals, Integrated Care Boards and project staff hosted by Dorset Council.
I have often heard about the positive work of the DCR team and how the way that records can be easily accessed is such a benefit to the organisations accessing this and most importantly the individuals receiving care. “Better informed, means better care” as the mantra goes, and it makes sense, and seems simple, but as we all know just because an idea is simple it does not mean it is easy to deliver. Continue reading “The Dorset Care Record: A view from Dorset Council’s Chief Executive Matt Prosser”
In our latest think-piece, our project manager Theresa Smith outlines the steps taken to create a range of pilots for our patient portal.
Following go-live of my Dorset Care Record (myDCR), the patient portal element of the Dorset Care Record, in March, the next step has been to start rolling out myDCR to specific individuals across the county.
myDCR, though still a work in progress, already supports a wide range of functions, including appointment information, links to additional resources/websites, the ability to share files (photographs, documents, etc.) with clinicians and the option to receive clinic outcome letters electronically rather than through the post. Continue reading “Our Patient Portal – Rolling out the myDCR Pilots”
In our latest think-piece, Tim Smith, communications manager for Population Health Management Service for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, highlights the ongoing work taking place to join up records across Wessex and writes about the importance of people understanding how their records are shared. His blog include a link to a survey for people to complete on their thoughts of records being shared.
If you are reading the DCR blog, you’ll probably already know that the Dorset Care Record enables sharing of patient information by health and care professionals across the county. You may also know that Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has a similar system called the Care and Health Information Exchange (CHIE).
But ill-health doesn’t recognise lines on a map. If I live in Basingstoke but have an accident on the A35 and get taken to hospital in Bournemouth or live in Dorchester but need to visit a regional specialist unit at Southampton General Hospital, my records can’t currently be shared ‘cross-border’ for my care and treatment. Continue reading “Sharing patient information across Wessex”
One of Dorset HealthCare’s Project Support Officers, John Hutchence, has for the past 4 months been working on finding out what DHC users think of DCR and how to promote the system. In our latest blog, John highlights some of important feedback received and details what is being done to further promote the system.
DCR has been live for several years and statistics regarding use are regularly sent out to partner organisations. The number of trained users within DHC has risen to over 1000, but the number of active users each month has typically been around 20% of this figure. In mid-February a questionnaire was sent out to all trained users to find out more about how the Trust uses DCR, with a view to increase the figures. Continue reading “Growing the use of the Dorset Care Record – A Partner’s story”