NHS Scotland Unifying Healthcare in Scotland

The NHS Scotland Patient Management System program for hospitals gives authorized users immediate access to better clinical and administration information from one standard healthcare information system. The program aims to improve patient care, modernize clinical processes, and encourage more cost-effective ways of working. It is a strategic part of the Scottish Government’s e-health transformation to empower a 21st century Scottish NHS to provide effective, fair, and affordable care.

The program implements TrakCare to replace aging disparate systems with one unified, Web-based healthcare information system to share best practices, minimize harmful variation of processes, and standardize reporting. It underpins the vision of connecting primary, community, and hospital care services for anticipatory, preventative, and continuous seamless care in the place most appropriate for the patient. A consortium of five Health Boards comprising of NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and NHS Lanarkshire created a team of more than 160 users to agree on requirements and select the patient management system in a rigorous two-year procurement process.

We believe that TrakCare will play an important role in streamlining patient services leading to faster diagnosis and treatment while enhancing patient safety.

Alan Lawrie eHealth Program Board Chairman, National Health Service, Scotland

When the contract was signed, Alan Lawrie eHealth Program Board Chairman, said, “We believe that TrakCare will play an important role in streamlining patient services leading to faster diagnosis and treatment while enhancing patient safety.” With NHS Lothian, which was already using TrakCare, the consortium Boards are responsible for over 70% of the Scottish population, and account for 131 separate NHS Scotland facilities that currently provide over 13,000 inpatient beds. The Boards chose extended functionality depending on their specific clinical and administrative needs, including pharmacy, laboratory, maternity, and mental health administration. Each Board maintains one TrakCare implementation, and during busy periods, together they will support more than 114,000 staff working in emergency, inpatient, outpatient, radiology, and mental health care settings. In a supplementary contract, NHS National Services Scotland chose InterSystems Ensemble® as the national integration platform to share information, processes, and workflow for interoperability between other systems.

The key benefits for Scotland are:

• Patient information entered once and shared by all authorized users, avoiding the costly storage, transport, and tracking of paper records between departments and care facilities.
• Immediate and effective recording of patient admissions, discharges, and transfers at all points-of-care to ensure continuity of care, and maintain detailed audits for service level management and reporting.
• Easy to use Web-based access with visual alerts that highlight patient waiting times, and critical care information such as allergies, as well as dashboards and reports for management insight.
• Easier test ordering and access to results, including radiology and PACS images, that minimizes lost and unnecessarily repeated tests.
• Real-time bed management within coordinated care processes that makes efficient use of resources.

In summary, NHS Scotland uses TrakCare to improve diagnosis, patient care and safety, reduce costs, and create enhanced reporting while reducing the amount of paper used. Patients and care providers benefit from a better patient experience and improved outcomes from hospital to home.