Excellence in healthcare information management

The winner the excellence in healthcare information management category of last year’s BT E-Health Insider awards was the Quality and Outcomes Research Unit at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust link. The runners up in the category, sponsored by IMS Health, were a prison healthcare solution from CSC and a new health service for Liverpool from Liverpool Primary Care Trust.

Prison Healthcare Solution: CSC

The pressure on prison clinicians is immense; each day, on average, there are 8,200 consultations. About 90% of prisoners have diagnosable mental health problems and 24% have injected drugs at some time. Prisoners are highly mobile, too, with 170,000 transfers a year between establishments.

SystmOne Prison is helping staff to improve care by making the prisoners’ electronic clinical records available immediately on transfer. This enables efficient health screening and ensures the patient record builds over time. CSC has rolled out the system to 70% of prisons in the North, East and Midlands of England.

A new health service for Liverpool: Liverpool Primary Care Trust

This project provides clinicians across Liverpool with shared access to patients’ medical records, supporting the PCT’s aim of keeping patients out of hospital wherever possible and providing continuity of care by well-informed clinicians. The change is being managed in three stages: the first uses EMIS Web to facilitate new services including an A&E diversion service and a new anti-coagulation service. The second, now underway, provides access to GP records for existing services. The third will see the creation of centres where systems used by acute trusts and community services are integrated with primary care systems and national applications such as the Electronic Prescription Service.