Mid Yorks puts e-consultations on ICE

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust is using Sunquest’s Integrated Clinical Environment to provide e-consulting services in radiology.

Speaking to Digital Health News, Lesley Chin, IT programme manager at the trust, said she thought it was the first trust in England to use the ICE order communications tool in this way. It went live with the service last Tuesday, 23 June.

The trust has already enabled e-consulting between local GPs and seven of its departments, including cardiology and haematology, using TPP’s SystmOne community system. This service went live in July 2014.

However, Chin said that the trust decided to develop an interactive version of ICE to provide e-consultation in radiology, which does not use SystmOne, and which also deals with practices using Emis GP systems.

ICE, which is used for requesting tests and reporting results, is accessible via both SystmOne and Emis. The new set up will allow GPs to ask questions of consultants using a simple form in a bespoke e-consultation tab.

Chin said the e-consultation process would allow GPs to ask questions such as whether or not to order a CT or MRI scan.

She added that radiologists were already comfortable using ICE, with 80% radiology referrals are made on the system, while a small e-consultation pilot had positive results.

The current radiology e-consultation process at Mid Yorkshire Hospital involves GPs phoning in requests to the department. These are written down by secretaries and either emailed or physically passed on paper to a consultant.

Chin explained that this can mean that consultation requests are not recorded accurately or logged for further reference.

With the introduction of ICE, Chin said there will be “no mismatch of messages”. The new system should also be more convenient for consultants.

“The request goes in like any other request into the radiology system and is diverted to a different workflow. The radiologist can access that workflow at a time that is convenient to them, so they are going to get less interruptions in their clinical working day when GPs are hanging on the phone.”

Chin said that the trust was working closely with Sunquest on the project and the company had identified this as an innovative way to use ICE that could be replicated in other trusts.

She also stressed that this was a “cost neutral” process that required no new functionality. “You are just using what you already have in a different way. It’s not expensive and it’s not system specific for GPs.”

Other NHS organisations using ICE in innovative ways include the Central London, West London, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing CCG Collaborative, which is working with five local acute trusts to create a single diagnostic record for patients.