Just got back from Manchester. An excellent opportunity to meet other
computer literate techies :)
The main thrust was communication. Without comms between interested
parties, PCGs will fail.
The conference has highlighted the fact that although we haven't yet got
guidance from central government, we have to start thinking about the
future. The future is going to based on data quality, warehousing and
extraction.
Data quality is critical to clinical governance (CG) and contracting.
Examples were given of projects that had been unable to look at issues of CG
because of poor data quality. Unless we can improve our coding structures
we will not be able to look much beyond simple prescribing issues, as this
is the only area that GPs are 100% electronic. As a GP the easiest way to
sabotage CG would be to record incomplete data; expect carrots and sticks!
Data warehousing is the idea that we should store lots of information in one
or more interconnected servers. Where should these be situated? More
importantly, who owns the data and is able to control the questions that are
asked of this data? Should Health Authorities provide a county wide
warehouse, from which PCGs would receive reports? If a PCG does not own the
data, nor ask the questions, how can we go to our colleagues to discuss
their CG? This also ignores the question of security and consent to access
of patients' records.
Data extraction, thankfully, seems to be rather less of a headache! As we
only have EMIS and Meditel in Sedgemoor, we are lucky that MIQUEST2 is able
to extract from both, and is already up and running. The only (viable?)
alternative would be to convert all practices to one or other system; this
_might_ be an option in the future, or a new common front end may appear for
both systems.
Other developments:
* Frank Burns has put NHSnet roll out into GP on hold
* Blair says that the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) should be made
available countrywide 24 hours a day, with access between GPs, and summaries
for different purposes e.g. alerts, emergency information only.
What next? As Ewan Davis of AAH Meditel said: "Don't Panic"
* DON'T: Buy Commissioning Systems, Virtual Private Networks, new GP or
Community systems
* DO: Wait for further guidance, Frank's IT strategy, make sure your
systems are RFA4 accredited and are able to data extract with MIQUEST2, get
connected to NHSnet, improve your data quality.
More at: http://www.avongp.demon.co.uk/umist_prog98b.htm
Some of the talks haven't been uplinked (yet!)
Dr G Mark Trowell
Highbridge Medical Centre
Pepperall Road
Highbridge
Somerset
TA9 3YA
Hakunamatata
(01278) 783220
(01278) 795486 (Fax)
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