GP practices are being offered free access to software that creates and electronically sends reports for insurance companies and other third-party organisations, automatically redacting sensitive information.
The Intelligent GP Reporting software, developed by Niche Health and launched this week, has already been adopted by insurers Legal & General.
Guy Bridgewater, managing director of Niche Health, told EHI the inspiration for the software is the significant amount of time that GP practices spend manually preparing the reports, redacting information and sending them to insurers.
“There’s a big push to ask GPs to do more in the current climate, and this is very much about giving them back time to do these things.”
Bridgewater said research has shown that practices spent an average of 73 minutes on each insurance request, with the software able to reduce the time spent to as little as ten minutes per report.
The issue of insurance companies requesting large amounts of information from GPs has also been in the news recently.
Dr Paul Cundy, the joint chair of the British Medical Association and Royal College of GPs’ joint IT committee, raising concerns with EHI after he received a request from Aviva for the full medical records of one of his patients, who wanted life insurance.
The company had used a ‘subject access request’ created by section 7 of the Data Protection Act, which was intended to enable individuals to see the information that an organisation holds about them. The Information Commissioner’s Office is to look into insurers’ use of this provision.
Bridgewater said the Niche Health system sits on a GP’s desktop and notifies them when they have received a request from a third party.
It allows staff to generate the report and automatically “strips out” non-permitted information, such as contraception details, negative test results and genetic testing information, before electronically sending it.
The software also allows GPs to manually redact any other information that they do not wish to share, he said. “Ultimately, the GP is the gatekeeper, and they are the ones who determine what leaves the practice.”
Bridgewater said the software covers general practitioner reports, subject access requests and targeted third-party reports where an organisation only needs to know about a specific condition.
It can be integrated into clinical systems via the Pocket or Patient Anywhere platforms, which are part of the Emis, INPS and TPP primary care systems.
Bridgewater said the system will be rolled out across practices over next 12 to 18 months, with several practices having already installed the software ahead of the launch.
Bridgewater said the software is being offered free of charge to GP practices in the UK, with insurers charged a fee to connect to the service.
While an insurer must also use the software for the GP practices to send the reports to them electronically, practices can still use the software to automatically redact information and prepare the reports
The Association of British Insurers said the software has the potential to speed up offering insurance to customers while reducing the risks of non-disclosure and maintaining the security of patients’ medical details.