The Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has published a new report defining standards for sharing information with pharmacy, optometry, dentistry, ambulance and community services (PODAC).
Entitled ‘Use of the core information standard in community settings: pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, ambulance and community services‘, the report intends to define information requirements for shared care records to ensure that professionals working in these care settings have access to the right information.
The project aims to identify the information in care records that should be available, review the existing PRSB Core Information Standard, develop new standards and correlate the standards with the contents of the GP record to quantify immediate opportunities for implementation of the standards based solely on the GP record.
PRSB note in the key findings: “There is a viable option to begin implementation using the GP record and that, subject to implementation and piloting outside the scope of this project, this could leverage national infrastructure as opposed to the various current shared care records.”
The findings continue: “There is overwhelming support and agreement that implementing PSRB Core Information Standard (2.0) across all PODAC settings is important for the benefit of both care professionals and those accessing care. Challenges such as change to professional practice to use the shared care record, checking use of shared care record is covered by the contracts that cover those services, challenges of information governance and challenges of professional indemnity should be explored through implementation pilots.
“Pilot projects should look at how the information is best displayed and navigated within IT systems to make the newly available data (as defined by the standard) useable and useful to the end user. Each care setting will need a different display of data and different ways of navigating that data.”
James Palmer, Programme Head for Digital PODAC at NHS Digital, commented: “The Core Information Standard is already benefitting patients and professionals across other parts of the NHS, so I’m really pleased we’ve been able to work with the PRSB to have this key asset extended for use in these additional care settings.
“Endorsing the information standard for use across PODAC sectors marks a really important step on the journey to enabling true interoperability across the wider health and care system.”
To view the report, please click here.
