NHS Fife begins electronic discharge summary project

Capula Healthcare has announced that it has started a pilot project with the NHS Fife operational division to electronically record patient hospital discharge information, which will then become available to GPs.

The project, which will use Capula’s Oasis patient administration software, forms part of NHS Fife’s electronic health record programme known as HOISS (Healthcare Organisations Information Systems and Solutions).

The acute hospitals that form NHS Fife’s Operational Division needed a more precise and efficient way to manage records for the discharge of its patients but, to date the, software has lacked the necessary clinical communication capability.

Using an Immediate Discharge Documents (IDD) module created for the new project, staff can now automatically create an electronic discharge document summarising key information from a patient’s care record. This includes details of the patient’s stay, discharge advice and any drugs that have been prescribed.

A key benefit is that the entire summary will eventually be viewable by the patient’s GP. The module also links through to the hospital pharmacy department detailing drugs to be dispensed on discharge.

The initial pilot area for the project will be one of the surgical wards at Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, together with the hospital’s pharmacy department.

Robert Packham, project director for NHS Fife said, “The Immediate Discharge Documents Project Module Team, which includes clinicians, nursing and pharmacy staff, has been supported by the in-house technical team from the operational division of the trust and experienced professional services staff [from] Capula, who together, developed both the software and the work processes to facilitate the pilot.”

Packham said that considerable work was needed to put in place the necessary electronic communications between primary and secondary care. “Now, with Capula’s support, we will soon deliver the electronic IDD, and are finally achieving one of our most valuable objectives.”

The software and resultant printed Immediate Discharge Document have been developed in line with the requirements of the SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guidance Network) guidelines and will ensure much improved legibility for general practitioners.

In the longer term, the electronic Immediate Discharge Document will be rolled out across NHS Fife and gradually made more sophisticated to become a full discharge document as further clinical pages are developed and added.