Ireland’s National Forensic Mental Health Service (NFMHS) has launched its new electronic medical record, InterSystems TrakCare, with the aim of promoting a “safer, more timely and efficient” service by enabling staff to spend more time providing personalised care and supporting multidisciplinary team coordination.
Replacing the service’s previous manual paper system, the EMR enables clinicians to access a single view of a patient’s status and data, offering access to information on treatment planning and progress, as well as test results, risk assessments, legal documentation, observations and medications. TrakCare will deliver individualised care programmes for patients based on rehabilitation needs, drawing upon the support of the multidisciplinary team to ensure a holistic view, with InterSystems stating that the access to real-time data across all areas of care will help to “improve patient safety and enhance decision making”.
InterSystems has been working with the NFMHS team, deploying a team to help guide the service’s staff to implement the solution with focus on cultural transformation as well as clinical.
Looking ahead, there are plans for NFMHS to use TrakCare to support its Personal Community programme for patients getting to the end of their rehabilitation journey. Through the EMR, carers will be able to access patient information to assist with helping patients into independent living units or back into the community.
Pat Bergin, head of service at NFMHS, said: “The implementation of InterSystems TrakCare is fundamental in helping us to ensure we are consistently offering the best healthcare services to our patients. Leveraging it aligns with our commitment to excellence, enabling us to deliver even better care and enhance operational efficiency. It will reduce errors and increase clinical compliance. TrakCare’s real-time reporting capabilities will enable staff to monitor outcome measures, risk and incident management and legal compliance.”
In September, we spoke to Gary Mooney of InterSystems on electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA). Gary shared with us some of his insights and takeaways from his experience working on EPMA roll-outs.
In other news from Ireland, the Health Service Executive has awarded a multi-year contract to Cardiac Services to deliver Nervecentre’s software as Ireland’s sole country-wide acute floor information system (AFIS), with implementation to be phased across 40 hospitals.
