GPs and practice teams are being advised to record all allergies and sensitivities as Read coded entries to solve a potential problem with GP2GP record transfer.
The team working on the introduction of GP2GP, which includes representatives form the joint General Practitioner Committee and Royal College of General Practitioners’ IT committee, have discovered difficulties with the transfer of allergy information because different GP clinical systems handle the recording of allergies in different ways.
Dr Paul Cundy, co-chair of the joint GPC and RCGP IT committee, said the problems meant that System “A” may hold the knowledge of an allergy to penicillin in a form that cannot be recognised by system “B” and vice versa. These differences can only be overcome by the application of complex translation tables and mapping rules which are potentially unsafe, he said.
Dr Cundy told EHI Primary Care that practices need to adopt the same approach used for Quality and Outcomes Framework data, where all entries are Read Coded, to ensure information is transferred safely.
He added: “If you put it in as Read coded data it will come across as Read coded data. It’s just adding to the degree of structure that people are putting into their records.”
Live testing of GP2GP using 23 practices in Gateshead PCT, all of which are EMIS practices, is due to get underway this month.
- Dr Cundy’s advice provoked a strong response from readers. See his comment posted below.
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