The first major phase of Berkshire’s shared care record initiative has gone live across 18 health and social care organisations.
New computer system Connected Care brings together key health and care patient information, building on Graphnet’s CareCentric shared record software. The shared care record programme has been dubbed Share Your Care.
The first phase of the system enables the sharing of information across two different Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs), covering 98 GP practices, 18 health and social care organisations including Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and two local authorities.
Up to 12,000 health and care professionals will now have consented access to the same core information about patients.
It is hoped the project will enable the right care from a number of different service providers to be delivered at the right time.
Nigel Foster, finance director for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the programme board lead for the Connected Care project in Berkshire East, said: “The vision behind this project is all about helping us make speedy, informed decisions, deliver more co-ordinated services and harness the latest available technology to improve clinical effectiveness, so that patient care is seamless.”
As well as combining information from various IT systems, it is hoped the project will also allow the development of individual care plans. A key aim is for patints to only have to explain their health problems once.
There are also plans to provide Berkshire residents with access to Graphnet’s myCareCentric patient portal. This means they will be able to access their own care record, with a view to making individuals more involved in their own health and wellbeing.
The next stage of Connected Care should see the remaining NHS trusts and councils being brought onto the system as part of a phased rollout, including Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and South Central Ambulance Service.
In a separate story, Digital Health News reported in September that more than 1,400 health and care professionals in Camden had accessed information via the Care Integrated Digital Record.