NHS Forth Valley has completed a project to upgrade its electronic document and records management system (EDRMS) to improve integration, interoperability, customisation for users, scanning capabilities and referral management.
Containing 13.5 million documents for 1.2 million patients, the system from CCube Solutions forms part of the health board’s strategy of integrating numerous IT systems using its clinical portal.
By migrating to the new web-based platform, the system introduces new functionality, including a wider choice for how a user wants to use the system, for example different views of a case note, timeline, or journey view.
Anne Fielding, NHS Forth Valley’s EDMS project team leader, explained: “The system offers various tools for managing documents and the reliability and speed of presenting larger documents via a browser is better. CCube Solutions has also been very responsive to tailoring EDRMS to how we want to work.
“EDRMS supports HL7 message interfaces and APIs, which means patient information created in other systems or received via PDF can be automatically saved in the central EDRMS repository for clinicians to see in one place.”
The system is also used to store messages from GP surgeries, as Dr Jonathan Begley, a GP at Viewfield Medical Practice in Stirling, explained: “Once a patient is accepted by an acute speciality by phone, acute referral documentation from our EMIS system can be sent electronically to NHS Forth Valley.
“This information is saved directly to the patient’s electronic record which our secondary care colleagues then access. They open the clinical portal and click on the clinical communications tab which takes them straight into EDRMS. This replaces using email inboxes for specialities which large teams of rotating clinicians don‘t always have access to, such that it’s a pathway now embedded in general use – 450 referrals are made like this every month.”
