21.03.14
‘Step change’ needed for effective healthcare IT integration
A “step change” is required if the NHS is going to become fully IT integrated in the future, according to industry experts speaking at the National Health IT Conference & Exhibition (HC 2014) this week.
The event on Wednesday and Thursday (March 19 and 20) in Manchester covered numerous topics including clinically-led transformation service and practice, social care informatics, patient engagement and delivering better care through IT.
At the event, NHE heard numerous success stories about how management systems and new technologies are helping improve hospital trust efficiencies and patient care.
One example, presented by Charles Yeomanson, associate director of ICT at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, discussed how the trust has developed an Integrated Acute Mental Health Liaison Service.
As part of the initiative, mental health community staff can now use their laptops to access the Trust’s information systems seamlessly and securely when they are in wards and in the A&E department at University Hospital. Similarly, staff based at the hospital working in the community around Coventry can use the secure wireless network to access their hospital’s information systems.
Yeomanson said: “This new service provides a single point of contact for mental health services and has already resulted in improved patient safety, quality of care and a reduced length of stay in hospital.”
Other debates considered the benefits of integrated care through the use of informatics. Sir Neil McKay, who chaired the topical session, said: “Integrated care has major implications for health and social care organisations. However, through integrated care I believe there will be a greater pattern with care being delivered, even more so, through primary care services.”
The session also included a lively discussion with audience members posing questions on how to integrate informatics efficiently? Whether the systems will be universal and act as a ‘plug-in’ feature? What the cost will be for these technologies? And how knowledge to frontline staff can be delivered?
Paul Rice, head of technology strategy at NHS England, also talked about the £100m Nursing Technology Fund, and more generally about how using new technologies in the healthcare system can deliver “increased transparency and participation” within the NHS.
Also, during the show, BCS (The Charted Institute for IT), The UK Council for Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP) and the Institute of Health Records and Information Management (IHIRM) announced they will be working more collaboratively to create a new federation for the informatics professions.
One theme that seemed to run throughout the event was that the NHS needs to embrace technology more openly and use it as a platform for improving, refining and changing current practices already in place within trusts. Andrew Hartshorn, chair of the Health and Social Care Council at techUK, said: “If we ‘electronify’ and replicate our paper world and our existing processes by putting some tech in there, it makes very little difference whatsoever. It is about developing a “step change” attitude in the NHS to using technology.”
For more detailed coverage from HC 2014, see the May/June 2014 edition of National Health Executive. Subscribe here: www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/Subscribe
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