Stalis has launched a clinical e-discharge solution to allow NHS trusts that do not have discharge summary functionality built into their patient administration system to produce immediate summaries for patients.
The company has made the CareXML/eDS product available after finding that many trusts are unlikely to hit the government’s April 2010 target for delivering discharge summaries to GPs within 24 hours.
Last week, E-Health Insider revealed that industry experts think as few as 20% of hospitals will be delivering discharge summaries within 24 hours by the deadline, despite being contractually obliged to do so.
John Wiltshire, sales and marketing director at Stalis, told EHI: “There has been a lot in the press recently about trusts admitting that they won’t meet the deadline because their current system doesn’t allow them to do it or because getting hold of the information is too difficult because the relevant systems, such as e-prescribing, are not in place.”
The CareXML/eDS solution is designed so that clinicians can interact with the process to ensure that the information is accurate and available at the correct time. The technology also allows the data for the discharge letter to be drawn from any trust system, particularly for coding, test results and to take out medicines.
The eDS was originally developed for the Health Service Executive in Ireland where it operates over several hospitals in Galway. St Vincent’s University Group in Dublin has also recently started using the system.
Wiltshire added: “As far as we know there are no other standalone products, other discharge solutions are built into large PAS systems, including our own Silverlink PAS.
“The product that we are launching is currently being used in two hospitals in Ireland to provide discharge summaries at the time of a patients discharge so that the patient can even take it with them.”
Christine Whitehouse, managing director of Stalis said that despite NHS chief executives being keen to avoid missing the deadline they are ultimately concerned about improving patient care.
“Hospitals and GPs recognise that quality and timely communication on patient discharge from hospital is vital to continuity of care ensuring improved health outcomes, reduced re-admission rates and ultimately better use of scarce hospital and community resources and we believe with CareXML/eDS, they can achieve this.”
Link: Stalis