#Peter Gill; – Dorset Care Record

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…” →

As part of Digital Dorset’s Festival of the Future Health and Social Care Day, the Dorset Care Record’s communications and engagement officer Tony McDougal interviewed the DCR’s Senior Responsible Owner Peter Gill and the Operational lead for public facing digital health technologies Crystal Dennis

Tony McDougal – So Peter, as Senior Responsible Owner for the Dorset Care Record, how is the record making a difference to the lives of clinicians and the public? What are the benefits of having a shared care record and does data really save lives?

Peter Gill – So, I think the simple message is instant access to critical information to the DCR which is hard to get to through other mechanisms. Previously people would have had to call through to a GP – a GP receptionist to try and speak to a GP to ask their GP for some information and that person may be coming from a busy emergency department and try to make those calls while the patient is in front of them would be very time consuming and possibly not even effective. Maybe the GP couldn’t come to the phone and describe what they know about the patient. So those very old fashioned processes have now been replaced by clinicians across UHD and social care staff at a click of a button whilst already in their core electronic record they use every day they can now click through to the DCR and have critical information that primary care, Dorset County, UHD knows about the patient and client in front of them. Continue reading “Lets talk about our digital future….” →