Patients often need to access multiple healthcare services to set them on the road to recovery, and keeping track of a patient’s treatments relies on the easy availability of medical records. This was not always easy to achieve in the Isle of Wight where many patient histories were stored on paper or held on IT systems in separate locations across the island. So Isle of Wight NHS Trust (IW NHST) asked CGI to create a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR) to improve the management of patients across the trust.<

The Challenge

IW NHST supports a broad cross-section of society from teenage parents to elderly patients. Add seasonal holiday-makers and festival-goers into the mix and the result is a diverse range of healthcare needs. Many patients have complex conditions and relying on paper or disparate medical records meant that vital details about a patient’s medication or treatment were not always easy to locate.

In this situation, when a patient with a known heart condition needs treatment following a fall, clinicians have to spend time ringing around to track down medical histories.

A clinician would often have to resort to asking the patient a set of questions that they have been asked many times before, and for patients who are distressed or confused, these questions can be difficult to answer. Without reliable information there might be no option but to arrange for expensive and time consuming tests or X-Rays that have already been completed elsewhere.

Our Answer

To help make it easier to store, access and share patient information, IW NHST chose CGI as their IT partner to create the island’s new Integrated Services Information System.

By integrating patient information held in 10 different IT systems, CGI and IW NHST developed a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR).

The result is that information from the acute hospital care systems, emergency departments, GPs and other community services are joined together into a single view of a patient’s record presented via CGI’s e-CareLogic portal solution.

Now, 900 users across the island’s health services access and share vital details about their patients. And in line with the growing recognition that there are many strands to a patient’s wellbeing, Isle of Wight NHST can also share information with social care teams where relevant via e-CareLogic.

e-CareLogic has also been linked to a new early warning patient observation system, Med eTrax. The system allows nurses to record bedside data on tablets and then displays patients’ information at a glance on a screen in wards, helping teams prioritise patient care.

Key Benefits

  • Patients receive more coordinated healthcare
  • Time is saved by not having to search for patient records
  • Clinicians can make informed decisions based on better information – leading to improved patient safety and outcomes
  • The patient experience is improved Patients receive more coordinated healthcare
  • Time is saved by not having to search for patient records
  • Clinicians can make informed decisions based on better information – leading to improved patient safety and outcomes
  • The patient experience is improved