27.04.11
Call for leadership ‘at every level’
Health informatics and healthcare records should be seen as a leadership issue at every level, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and BCS suggest, calling for doctors to take on specific leadership roles.
They also recommend the implementation of clinical records standards as produced by the RCP and agreed by the AoMRC, to be incorporated into training to reduce errors.
This work could be supported by a Professional Record Standards Development Body (PRSDB) to lead development and assurance of clinical record standards. Chief Clinical Information Officer posts in every hospital would help doctors to lead on implementation of national standards.
Professor John Williams, director of the RCP’s Health Informatics Unit (HIU), said: “Accurate information derived from data captured at the point of care is fundamentally important to ensure high quality, safe management of individual patients and evidence-based development and management of clinical services.
“Clinical leadership is essential to ensure that the processes of data capture in patient records are fit for purpose and the aggregate information derived is relevant, valid and useful to patients, professionals and the NHS.“
Professor Iain Carpenter, deputy director of the HIU, said: “It’s time for healthcare professionals to implement medical records standards in the same way they implement evidence-based clinical guidelines – by improving health records we can improve patient care.”
Mike Sinclair, BCS Health vice-chair for professionalism, said: “These initiatives powerfully reinforce and strengthen the increasing importance of clinicians, and the information that they routinely collect and use, in the quality, effectiveness and safety of care across the NHS.
“The use of information and information systems must now become an even more fundamental and integral part of the professional development and conduct of clinicians across all health and social care services and sectors.”
NHE explores issues around the proposed Professional Record Standards Development Body in our March/April edition. Health professionals can subscribe for free at http://content.yudu.com/A1w6ex/NatioHealthExMarch12/ and then view the digital archive.
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