CCG board member Dr Bhupinder Kohli says that EMIS Web has freed up an extra four hours a week to spend with patients at his 10,000 list practice, and is helping to drive up standards across the CCG through:

• Secure data sharing with the local healthcare community - including community matrons, hospital diabetes specialists and mental health specialists who are also using EMIS Web - enabling them to provide better, safer care
• Reliable, patient-friendly electronic prescribing (EPS R2) - lost prescriptions are a thing of the past, and reception staff are saving two hours a week previously spent processing paper prescriptions
• High level data searches to monitor immunisations and diabetes care so that the CCG can offer extra support to practices that need it
• Sophisticated electronic document management - ensuring all incoming urgent tasks are handled swiftly.

Dr Kohli says secure data sharing between Newham GPs and other local clinicians is saving time and helping to improve clinical care. "Interoperability is a revolution for the NHS. The GP electronic record is the richest source of patient information in the health service and through EMIS Web, other services in Newham can now share that wealth of knowledge."

For example, two GPs with special responsibility for more than 300 patients in local mental health units have access to the patients' own GP record. "The patient's physical condition is a vital part of mental healthcare, and through data sharing with EMIS Web we are narrowing the health inequalities for people with mental illness," says Dr Kohli. "People may not die of schizophrenia, but they could die from diabetes if that's not properly treated."

He adds: "Workflow manager within EMIS Web has enabled us to go paperless. Every urgent fax or clinical document that comes into the practice is scanned within an hour via EMIS Web and actioned by a GP within 4 hours. Discharge letters are now fully electronic - they drop automatically into the EMIS Web system workflow, saving two hours scanning time a week.

"Dealing with everything electronically has made our practice much safer - we are not losing documents and we have a complete audit trail."

Related news articles:

• EMIS' Profile

About EMIS
EMIS is the UK leader in clinical IT systems for joined-up patient care. Its systems hold 39 million patient records and are used by over 5,000 healthcare organisations - from GP practices to community, child and mental health services. 52.4%* of GP practices in the UK use an EMIS system.

Founded by two forward-thinking GPs, the company's aim is to protect and improve the health of the nation through innovative information technology supporting patients and all those involved in their care.

The company's flagship EMIS Web system enables secure shared access to a patient's whole-life electronic health record. It is the most widely-used GP clinical system in the UK. EMIS owns and operates the leading health information website www.patient.co.uk, which receives more than 6 million unique visitors each month. Alongside GP-authored information, the site also provides secure online patient services including: booking GP appointments; ordering repeat prescriptions; access to individual medical records.

EMIS is part of EMIS Group plc - the UK leader in connected healthcare software and services. Other companies in the Group include: Ascribe - a leading provider of software and IT services to secondary care; Rx Systems, whose software is used by 34.9% of community pharmacies in the UK; Digital Healthcare, a leading provider of diabetic retinopathy screening and other ophthalmology-related solutions; and Egton, who provide IT infrastructure, engineering and support.