Community pharmacists and GPs in Wolverhampton will soon be able to offer joined up healthcare to thousands of patients, using cutting edge record-sharing technology. Wolverhampton clinical commissioning group (CCG) and EMIS Health have reached an agreement to jointly offer funding towards Pharmacy Access, a software package to enable local community pharmacies and GPs to securely share vital patient information and streamline the ordering and auditing of repeat prescriptions.
Pharmacies using the EMIS Health ProScript PMR system will be able to request repeat prescriptions electronically from GPs using the EMIS Web clinical system.
Pharmacists will also be able to view key clinical data in the GP record, including adverse reactions and allergies, historically prescribed acute and repeat medications, and test results such as the International Normalised Ratio (INR) thyroid function, blood pressure and blood sugars, amongst others. It will also facilitate advanced and enhanced services such as Medicines Use Reviews and the New Medicine Service.
The CCG is now inviting all 27 pharmacies and 35 GP practices in the area using ProScript and EMIS Web systems to roll out the technology.
The rollout will incorporate robust protocols to protect patient confidentiality. Patients must provide documented consent before the pharmacist can view their GP record. Access to the GP record within the pharmacy is governed by highly secure role-based access controls enforced by NHS Smart Cards.
Sheila Gregory, project implementation officer at Wolverhampton CCG said: "We are excited to be offering pharmacists Pharmacy Access, which shows what is possible with joined up healthcare. We look forward to measuring the clinical and administrative benefits over the next few months as the project gets up and running."
Ian Taylor, Managing Director of community pharmacy at EMIS Health said: "This is a timely project that supports the pharmacy profession's desire to play a greater role in the care of patients, through secure and relevant access to patient information.
"It will also benefit patients themselves, by better joining up their care."
Pharmacy Access is currently in place in over 150 other community pharmacies across the country.
Related news articles:
- EMIS' Profile
About EMIS Health
EMIS Health is part of EMIS Group plc - the UK leader in connected healthcare software and services.
EMIS Health provides software and services to clinicians working across every major UK healthcare setting, including:
- Primary Care - market leader with 54% share of the UK GP market; its systems hold 40 million cradle to grave patient records;
- Community Children's and Mental Health Care - 9% and growing UK market share;
- Secondary Care - 81% of NHS Acute Trusts use an EMIS Health system; its software holds 30 million patient records in A&E alone;
- Community Pharmacy - the single most used integrated community pharmacy and retail system (36% UK market share);
- Specialist Care - EMIS Health is the leading provider of software and services to support diabetic eye screening (82% English market share) and other ophthalmology and specialist services.
EMIS Health is an innovator in secure data-sharing to join up healthcare. It was the first in the UK to enable community pharmacists to access information from the GP patient record - supporting safer dispensing - and the first to integrate personal health data captured on wearable consumer devices with the GP patient record.
Other businesses within EMIS Group are
- Patient - the UK's leading provider of patient-centric medical and well-being information and related transactional services; www.patient.info attracts 18 million unique visitors a month.
- Egton - providing specialist ICT infrastructure, software, hardware and engineering services.
- EMIS Care - the new name for EMIS Group’s most recent acquisition, Medical Imaging, a specialist provider of grading and assessment services to support diabetic eye screening.