Tavistock and Portman extend CareNotes use

Staff at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust are extending the use of their CareNotes patient care record system to make use of its clinical functionality.

CareNotes CRS is an electronic health care record solution designed by Strand technology that aids mental health trust in caring for clients from initial contact to discharge.

Tavistock first signed a business plan for CareNotes in 2003 and switched on the system shortly afterwards. However, for the past four years, the trust has been using the system on a limited basis.

Allan Archibald, head of informatics at Tavistock and Portman, said: “Up until now we have been using the system as the trust’s basic administration system, but more recently we have been trying to change this and generate interest in using the clinical functionality to aid us in our mental health work, mostly psychotherapy.”

Allan added: “Using CareNotes to its full potential will bring benefits on a number of levels: it will support the use of multiple sites which is important as we look at more work within the community to meet Foundation status; it allows clinicians to type up their notes if they wish; and to book appointments straight away at a clinic while the patient is still in the consulting room.”

However, Archibald admitted that there is still ‘a mountain to climb’ before all clinicians will want to fully embrace the clinical functionality.

“There is a reluctance to code information in mental health, hence why there has been slow progress in introducing this clinical coding functionality. Slowly, we are talking with clinicians and trying to change their mindsets, but wee have to take this one step at a time. I would say that around 10% of our small workforce are now using the clinical functionality of the system.”

The trust has begun one-on-one meetings with clinicians demonstrating the system and taking their input into what they would like to see added to the functionality to make their jobs easier. The aim, Archibald says, is “to show the more you put in, the more you get out.”

David Hannam, sales director at Strand Technology, told EHI: “This is a classic example of the one size fits all strategy not working in healthcare, We have worked very closely with Tavistock to evolve their PAS and help to introduce functionality to users on a phase-by-phase basis. CareNotes is already in use throughout the organisation, and we anticipate a gradual appreciation of the clinical functionality which can help improve key work in mental health and make observations a lot easier.”

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