£4 Million for 'Snapshot' Clinical Portal System

Four million pounds of Scottish Government money is being invested in a single-search IT access system that will work across four Scottish health boards.

Known as a 'clinical portal', the new system will allow doctors, nurses and other key healthcare professionals across primary and acute care to access the same key 'snapshot' of patient information. The system will remove the need for clinical staff to log on to multiple IT systems to get the information they need and will cover more than a quarter of the Scottish population. It follows a similar system already up and running in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, covering approximately a further 1.2 million people.

The four boards involved: NHS Lothian, NHS Fife, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Borders – have now confirmed that Northgate Managed Services - who already work with over sixty health sector organisations, including every health board in Scotland - has been selected as the preferred bidder to deliver the service.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "Investing in new technology is bringing real benefits for patients and staff across our health service. The £4 million investment being announced today means healthcare workers across four boards will have access to the same snapshot of information on patients. That not only helps make patient care quicker and safer, but also makes patient information more secure. It saves time for staff - and making care more efficient is always good news for patients.

"The clinical portal system means patients from Fife to the Borders - working out at around 1 in 4 Scots - will soon be covered by the same unified, single system of IT access. This is in addition to the clinical portal covering around 1.2 million people in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, which is already delivering for patients and clinicians."

The clinical portal is seen as the key to realising the vision in the Scottish Government's strategy and action plan Better Health Better Care (2008), to "...ensure that the right information is available at the right time, in the right place, to enable staff to provide the best possible care".

Graham Gault, Head of Information Management & Technology, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, who led the consortium, said: "The clinical portal initiative is widely supported by clinicians. Northgate Managed Services and Carefx have provided a prototype for the consortium which has proved that it can integrate with the different systems used across the four health boards and provide clinicians with a single view of the patient across each of the regions and real-time patient information, with the utmost accuracy. We look forward to working with Northgate and Carefx, to introduce the new system across all four boards in the consortium over the year, which will allow them to reduce their dependence on paper records."

"The aim for all healthcare organisations today is to improve the quality of patient care, while reducing the costs to the NHS of providing its services, and this initiative strengthens our position in being able to do just this," adds Gault. "By deploying the portal we know that our consortia of trusts will be able to deliver secure, real-time access to relevant patient data, at that precise point in the care pathway. This is about meeting the needs of healthcare staff, the organisation and most importantly the patient."

James Turnbull, Managing Director of Infrastructure Solutions at provider Northgate said: "We are very pleased to be selected as the preferred bidder to provide a clinical portal for the NHS across such a large area of Scotland…Clinical portals can significantly speed up patient services and cut down on bureaucracy as the technology will pick up data from wherever it is stored and display it instantly," Turnbull added. "But more than that, for healthcare providers it eliminates the expense of having to replace their existing IT systems. As the portal is affordable and easy to deploy, it also offers a swift return on investment, which is more important than ever at a time when budgets are very tight."

NHS Lothian's Director of eHealth Martin Egan said: "Our aim is to improve the quality of patient care, while reducing costs and this initiative strengthens our position in being able to do just this. The portal is widely supported by clinicians and the prototype proved that it can integrate with the different systems used across the four health boards. It will deliver secure and accurate real-time patient information, improving patient care and reducing our dependence on paper records."

The health boards will now finalise their business cases to take the programme forward.