Practical tips for creating an integrated digital care record from Connecting Care

Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, UK

Practical tips for creating an integrated digital care record

Large-scale integrated digital care record projects are critical to the care integration agenda; and more than 60 are underway up and down the country. Yet these projects take time and work. Which is why, when they produce exceptional results, the lessons need to be shared as widely as possible.

At the King’s Fund’s annual digital health and care congress, Fran Draper, the engagement lead and senior project manager of Connecting Care, shared her five top tips for success.

1) Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve

The Connecting Care programme is an integrated digital care record used by health and social care professionals across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Since it went live in 2013, it has grown to give both health and social care professionals secure, role-based access to around 800,000 patient records.

To get so many organisations on board, and to get the system into daily practice, Fran says it is essential to “have a shared commitment and vision of what you would like to achieve” – and “that’s quite hard when you’re dealing with 23 different organisations [alongside 85 GP practices], each with their own agenda.”

“What I’ve learned is that there needs to be a problem to solve,” she told her audience at the King’s Fund. “It’s no good just doing a project for the sake of having something shiny and new. There have to be benefits – and those benefits may well take effort and time to realise.”