Scotland has launched a public information campaign about the transition to electronic health records with a leaflet on its Emergency Care Summary (ECS) delivered to all 2.5 million households in the country.
A further 400,000 copies of the leaflet has been distributed to GP practices, primary and secondary care services north of the border. The leaflet, Your Emergency Care Summary, explains what is included in the ECS, how access and consent arrangements work and how to opt out.
Health minister Andy Kerr said the leaflet was the first in a series informing the public about the eventual transition to fully electronic health records.
He added: "In the future, all health records will be stored and linked electronically, and that will bring great benefits over the old paper files kept in different places and electronic records that are not linked up."
The ECS was set up in Scotland in 2003 when the vast majority of GPs opted out of out of hours work and it was agreed that out of hours doctors would benefit from some basic patient information.
The ECS contains data on current medications, repeat medications and allergies plus basic demographic information. It is extracted from GP records and held on a central data repository, the ECS Store, and updated twice a day if anything is changed in the GP record. The summary can only be accessed with explicit patient consent unless a patient is unconscious.
The system currently holds records on the 4.4 million people covered by the GPASS computer system. The remaining 0.6 million people in Scotland are covered by the GP commercial suppliers of which three out of four are currently undergoing testing .
A spokesperson for the Scottish Executive told EHI Primary Care: “It is currently planned that rollout of the software to other GP Practices will occur towards the end of October 2006 if ‘fit for purpose’. One commercial GP system supplier has only produced their software to work in a Managed Technical Services and discussions are ongoing re a suitable resolution to this issue.
The ECS can be accessed by staff in out-of-hours medical centres and NHS24 pharmacists and a group of NHS24 staff nurses have access to the ECS standalone web browser utility. The Scottish Executive spokesperson said a planned ECS, NHS24 Call Management Systems integration project is underway with delivery expected in May 2007.
All A&E departments also have access to the ECS utility, but not all have requested access so far. The A&E departments that do have access utilise the standalone web browser access format. A project is about to begin developing the requirements for A&E system, ECS and local SCI Store integration.
The leaflet says that in future access to the ECS may also be extended to ambulance staff.
Douglas Sinclair, Chair of the Scottish Consumer Council, welcomed the wide distribution of the leaflet:
He said: "Our research with the public has shown that people want to be kept fully informed of how their personal health information is stored and shared. This leaflet drop is an important step in ensuring that people in Scotland understand what is happening and what their rights are in this area."
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