Access to GP and community care patient data through the Medical Interoperability Gateway (MIG) is now available to 6,000 health and care professionals across Bristol.
Part of the Connecting Care Partnership which supports 85 GP practices, three community providers, three acute hospitals, a mental health trust and three councils it brings together 20 clinical and social care systems allowing 24 health and care organisations to view the data.
The MIG now provides over 6,000 health and care professionals role-based access to primary care and community health records, End of Life Care Plans, clinical letters and correspondence from the three acute hospitals in the region. Presenting information such as patient demographics, medications, diagnoses, prescriptions, warnings and alerts.
Fran Draper, Senior Project Manager for the Connecting Care Programme “Our colleagues in health and the councils now release time to care because they don’t have to search around for information anymore. Pre-operative assessment used to take around 2.5 hours per person. Now it takes under a minute. Bristol City Council safeguarding team now spend 15% less time dealing with telephone calls from health colleagues with safeguarding concerns about their patients. It also helps reduce hospital admissions if clinical staff can see that there is alternative care in place and unnecessary home visits if staff can see that someone has already been admitted.”
“The GP and community care data that the MIG supplies is the bedrock of Connecting Care. Over the last six years, we have gradually expanded the number of MIG views and the amount of data we present.”
“The MIG allows us to display information across health and care settings. GPs and social workers can see clinical letters and correspondence including hospital discharge summaries while hospital doctors and consultants can check GP medical histories when caring for new patients. Many GPs like the MIG’s summary view because it is so clear and information is easy to find.”
Dr Mike Taylor, Lead GP at the Homeless Health Service “We had no idea about past prescribing, recent GP visits, safeguarding, no documents, no results, nothing. Without that patient history, extra risk is unavoidable. When Connecting Care became available, it was like the lights going on – it was a massive step forward. You could see that patients had consulted their doctor or that a care plan was in place.”
“During out of hours care in the past, if we couldn’t get through to a patient on the phone, we had to ask the police or fire brigade to knock the door down and make sure patients hadn’t collapsed. Now we can see if they were admitted to hospital and can contact the consultant or GP. Connecting Care has saved me a tremendous amount of time and spared a lot of Bristol’s front doors!”
Zehra Tahtakilic, Recovery Support Worker at Bristol Specialist Drug & Alcohol Service “Along with allergies, mental health issues and other health conditions, we can see which medication their GP has prescribed which is really effective in avoiding duplicate prescribing. Before, we would be calling the GPs right, left and centre so it’s definitely saved us a lot of time. We help people who haven’t got a GP so MIG data is very useful to find out if they are already registered or not.”
In May 2019 there were 37,500 user views of data as part of the Connecting Care Programme.
