New mothers in Wales first to have access to EHRs

New mothers are to be among the first in Wales to receive access to their own electronic health records constructed from the data held by their GPs, as a result of Informing Healthcare (IHC), the Welsh national healthcare IT programme.

The scheme is part of the development of the ‘My Health On-Line’ system, which will act as a patient portal to the Welsh electronic patient record, the Individual Health Record (IHR).

Dr Gwyn Thomas, programme director of IHC, told E-Health Insider that electronic records would be the patient’s way into the system: "We are going to start off with mothers," he explained. "They are used to having the paperwork given to them at the moment."

Dr Thomas explained that the initial rollout will be used to trial the approach to the programme’s consent model. The current plan is that patients will be able to see an audit of who has accessed their record, and be able to flag up any attempts they consider questionable.

"Underpinning the whole consent issue, we will give patients not just access to their own record, but information about who has accessed their record," said Dr Thomas.

The IHR, which will initially be built from data held on GP systems, will broadly feature demographic data, care relationships and a summary of health events. It will also contain the patient’s health status, which will include information such as allergies and current medication, but will not contain everything.

My Health On-Line will differ from the current format of HealthSpace, the National Programme for IT’s patient portal, in that it will directly interface with the patient’s electronic health records. Users will be encouraged to use the site and share the information in it with carers and healthcare professionals.

Dr Thomas said that the portal was an important project in the programme: "One of the principles that we’ve tried to emphasise is that ‘it’s my health, it’s my record’."

Prototype models are currently being built for the rollout of My Health On-Line across maternity. A public information campaign is being planned for next year.

A full interview with Informing Healthcare’s programme director will be published in E-Health Insider later this week.