NHS Shetland selects Morse EPR for mobile working

NHS Shetland has selected Cambric Systems to supply its mobile electronic patient record (EPR) for community teams.

The Morse mobile EPR has been chosen to support a wide range of community-based health services delivered in patients’ homes and community settings, across multiple islands.

It allows clinicians to work both online and offline, so that they can access patient records, assessments and forms at the point of care regardless of connectivity, with patient records and notes synchronised when a connection becomes available.

The EPR will initially be implemented in community nursing teams within the next six to 12 months, with rollout planned across other specialist community services and allied healthcare professionals in the future.

Kim Anderson, chief nurse for community and mental health at NHS Shetland, said: “Using Morse will change how we access, record and share clinical information in our community.

“Having everything documented in Morse will give us complete visibility of our patient care. It will give us much better oversight and assurance in relation to the quality and continuity of our services.”

She added: “Having all the information of previous tests and treatments when they visit a patient, particularly those with complex needs, helps decision making at the time for improved care.”

Morse will enable NHS Shetland to move from paper-based to electronic patient records, with the aim of freeing up the time that community nurses spend on paperwork.

Bibianna Wojtczak, senior project manager and team leader at NHS Shetland, added: “The adoption of Morse supports NHS Shetland’s digital ambitions to move from paper-based processes and disconnected systems towards a more integrated, electronic approach to care delivery.

“The offline functionality in Morse is particularly important, as we will be able to record and share assessments with other services.

“Initially we are focusing on our community nurses, but we know that other patient services outside the hospital are interested in using the system.

“It offers a digital health solution that supports our frontline clinical work and the challenges of working across a remote and rural population.”

System level integrations between Morse and the board’s GP system mean that information will be shared, avoiding doubling up of data entry and streamlining information flow between services and professionals.

Garry Sherriff, MD at Cambric, said: “Morse has been developed in close partnership with NHS clinicians over many years and is already in use across multiple NHS Boards, particularly in rural, island and remote settings.

“It has been designed specifically for community and mental health care and is ideal for NHS Shetland to support its community nurses who are mobile across large and often disconnected geographies, and working as part of multidisciplinary teams.”

Morse supplies healthcare patient data software solutions used in secondary and community-based healthcare settings across Scotland, including NHS Orkney, NHS Forth Valley, the NHS Western Isles Health Board, and the National Treatment Centre Highland.