EMIS captures CIDS data

EMIS has released software that captures data for the new Community Information Data Set, which came into force on Sunday.

The data set is part of new episode management functionality that captures information on the patient pathway from community allied health professionals including district nurses, health visitors and physiotherapists.

EMIS has been piloting the episode management functionality in Cumbria, Cheshire and Liverpool since January.

It has now gone live at two services in Cumbria and the company anticipates that the vast majority of EMIS Web Community and EMIS Web Child Health users will be using it by the end of the year.

EMIS clinical development director Shaun O’Hanlon said the new module means the full chronology of a patient episode – from referral through the discharge – is recorded as part of the dataset.

The functionality is integrated into the workflow, with information collected automatically as health workers go through the system. This requires some process training, which is done via a five-minute video for staff.

CIDS came into force on 1 April and requires community organisations to collect information about patient care and outcomes – similar to the Secondary Uses Service.

The data set includes information such as patient demographics, care activities and onward referrals.

The aim of CIDS is to allow community health information to be collected locally and compared nationally in order to inform commissioning decisions and address health inequalities.

O’Hanlon said EMIS had worked with the NHS Information Centre on the dataset and was“delighted to be in the vanguard of implementing it."

“For the first time in the history of the NHS, clinicians will have a rich source of information on community healthcare, systematically gathered, that will enable them to better commission services and improve care pathways for patients,” he said.