Contractual Requirements for IT/Electronic Patient Records
It is a requirement of General Medical Services 2014/2015 that all GP practices inform their patients of their current status in relation to a number of electronic services:
Electronic Transfer of Patient Record
The system (GP2GP) that electronically transfers patient medical records from one practice to another is already activated at Brookvale practice.
Electronic Appointment Booking
The practice provided patients with the facility to book an appointment online approximately 4 years ago and since installing the facility we have received some very positive feedback from patients.
Electronic Booking of Repeat Prescriptions
The practice provided patients with the facility to order repeat prescriptions online approximately 4 years ago and to date lots of patients now use the facility.
Patients Access to their GP Record
Patients will be able to view their medical record on line from March 2015. Patients will be able to view their medical records relating to medications, allergies, summary of conditions and adverse reactions. It is our aim to have the facility ready as soon as possible however this will be no later than March 2015.
Summary Care Record
The "summary care record" is an electronic summary of a patient's key clinical information The practice has already activated a summary care record for all patients other than those who have expressed a wish to opt out of this service. For further information please see our "care data" page which can be located under the patient information tab on this web site.
This record can only be viewed in emergency or urgent care settings with the consent of the patient unless the patient is unable to give consent (for example if they are unconscious
EMIS Data-Sharing Agreements
Brookvale Practice uses an IT system called EMISWeb to store your medical records. This is a hosted system, which means your data is held on the EMIS servers in Leeds and is accessed by us via N3, a secure broadband network which is only accessible to the NHS.
The Practice has signed data-sharing agreements with other NHS organisations which mean that other NHS organisations can view your patient data and vice versa, the practice can view data held by other NHS organisations.
Patient confidentiality is paramount to Brookvale Practice. The practice will only sign a data sharing agreement with another NHS organisation if we feel sharing the data is safe to do so and is in the best interest of the patient.
Before any person can view your medical record they must have a legitimate relationship with you, i.e. you must be registered on their system as a current patient. Access to shared records is recorded and your consent should be obtained by the person accessing your medical record. EMISWeb has an audit trail facility which allows the host organisation to trace who has viewed any aspect of a patients record. All persons who are employed by an NHS organisation are governed by a strict “information governance” policy which prohibits them sharing any information relating to a patient outside of an NHS organisation.
The practice is also signed up to share data with local NHS commissioning organisations via EMIS Search & Report. This involves sharing the results of specific searches set up to identify the numbers of patients meeting the search criteria – patient-identifiable data is not shared as all data is anonymised.
For further details please click on the link below:
EMIS-to-EMIS-Data-Sharing Agreement
Sharing in emergency or urgent situations
There can on occasion be issues that need acting upon swiftly. In such circumstances it isn’t always possible to talk to you beforehand. If there is a concern that you or someone else might come to some harm or suffer avoidable distress, then information can be shared lawfully. For example if an elderly patient is visited by a care worker, who has serious concerns about their state of health, they may well speak to the person’s GP, nurse or call emergency services or if there are concerns of possible abuse or domestic violence, staff may discuss such cases to check whether their concerns need acting upon.
Sharing where there is a legal duty
There are a number of situations that can arise where the law makes it a duty that information is shared. In cases where children need to be protected organisations are duty bound to work together. If any suspected terrorist activity is identified, then organisations are duty bound to inform the authorities. If an individual contracts particular ‘communicable diseases’ then their Doctor is duty bound to notify authorities to ensure the spread of any disease is limited as far as possible (this includes Cholera, plague, smallpox and others).