Doncaster will deploy an integrated digital care record this summer, initially drawing on patient data from four organisations across health and social care.
In a statement, Doncaster CCG, which is leading the project, said it was launching a “proof of concept” integrated digital care record this year.
The record will draw from community, acute, mental health, and social care systems to create a “complete health record for patients on demand”.
Initially this will be specifically aimed at supporting a new pathway developed for reducing falls.
The benefits of a shared record would be tested for this specific group of patients for between 12 and 16 months, and potentially expanded if the benefits justify further funding.
Andy Clayton, head of informatics at the CCG, said the area was fortunate to have recently developed a new pathway across organisations to test the technology.
“We have been working very closely with our partners across Doncaster to ensure that this initiative not only supports our testing of the technology but ultimately brings benefits to patients, their carers and those delivering services to them.”
Channel 3 Consulting is running the procurement for the record on behalf on Doncaster CCG. The company’s consulting director Gareth Dellenty said he was expecting a supplier to be selected by April and the record itself to be deployed this summer.
The record would pull information from existing IT systems used by participating organisations, rather than create new record, he said.
“We won’t be developing a new repository of patient data.”
Shared care or integrated digital records have been used successfully in pockets on the NHS, such as the Hampshire Health Records, for years.
However, wider enthusiasm for shared regional records is growing as NHS embarks on another round on reorganisation based on great regional cooperation and integration built around the 44 sustainability and transformation plans (STP).
They are also seem a crucial for gathering population health data are a regional level, which can then be feed into a proposed “national data lake”.
The Doncaster record will initially cover Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, Doncaster CCG, Rotherham, and Doncaster & South Humber NHS Foundation Trust.
A second wave of organisations, including Doncaster Children’s Trust, Fylde Coast Medical Services and several care homes and hospices are expected to join later.
Doncaster’s local digital roadmap calls its plan shared care record the “single most important change we need to make” and Doncaster CCG said, if successful, it could be expand to cover the STP footprint of South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw.