Delivering a single regional medicines record

Better has won a contract to support Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership deliver a regional medicines record.

The trust is looking to integrate services across the region, adopting a centrally-managed system that will provide a shared medicines record when a patient is transferred to different health settings across the region.

And using the Better openEHR platform and Better Meds software is the first step in this strategy to provide a consolidated medicines record platform centered around the patient which is accessible by authorised healthcare professionals in any of the region’s care settings.

Andrew Thompson, acting digital health lead and chief technology officer at the trust, said: “Like many developing integrated care systems, we have a range of disparate data sets all over the region, embedded in different systems.

“This makes it very hard for effective sharing of information and has the potential for issues if a patient is transferred across care settings.

“We know that adopting a more-unified approach, utilising open data standards, will mean our patients will have a better experience and safer, more-effective care.”

As we move to regional care under health and care partnerships, it is vital that the current interoperability issues impacting on the NHS are tackled

Better is now working with the region’s digital team to establish a patient-centric consolidated medicines record, providing immediate access, anytime and anywhere, to vital information across the whole region.

This will bring together the medicine records from all care settings: primary care, secondary care, mental health, care homes, and hospices.

And the crucial medicines information will be available at the point of care, enabling care teams to make better decisions.

Moreover, the open platform approach will also enable instant read-write capability to get a real-time view and reconciliation of medicines administration.

The platform, underpinned by open data standards, will provide additional benefits in understanding medicines reconciliation in transfers of care, as well as improving patient safety across the system.

If a patient is transferred from one care setting to another, there is a significant chance of an error being introduced into the person's prescriptions, which could have very-serious consequences

Matthew Cox, managing director of Better UK and Ireland, said: “In an individual hospital setting, you can manage the data within your organisation using a single system. But, if a patient is transferred from one care setting to another, there is a significant chance of an error being introduced into the person's prescriptions, which could have very-serious consequences.

“As we move to regional care under health and care partnerships, it is vital that the current interoperability issues impacting on the NHS are tackled.

“We are proud that Lancashire and South Cumbria Health Care Partnership has chosen Better to support it in resolving this challenge.”