Case study 4

The Countess of Chester Hospital uses MedisecEReferrals (GP) to allow GP surgeries to make fast, secure electronic patient referrals.

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Cheshire uses Medisec EReferrals (GP) to run the UK's largest electronic patient referral system, allowing GPs to make fast, secure electronic patient referrals for inpatients, outpatients and radiology, at the touch of a button.

The Trust has linked up to 33 surgeries across Cheshire, Flintshire and the Wirral with more than 2,600 e-referrals now being made every month - more than a quarter of all the hospital's referrals.

Standardised documents produce more accurate correspondence by triggering all the required information. Templates have been created in a simple Word format by the GPs, working in close collaboration with the PCT and the Countess of Chester NHS Trust. Hospital's departments meanwhile receive the most relevant information for their needs. For example, while a general ward admission will only need a synopsis of the latest problems, medications, family history, allergies etc, more complex cases will rely on additional specific clinical data.

As the template system includes the results of tests already carried out by the GP, it also eliminates wasteful duplication of tests in hospital.

The referral process minimises the key strokes for GPs with a 'Send to Medisec' button appearing in the toolbar of Microsoft Word. An alert message is automatically generated to confirm delivery and guarantee that the referral will not go missing.

"Before Medisec, we would produce the referral, then print the paper and put it in an envelope," says Dr Morris, who makes around 25 electronic referrals a month. "Now, the patients love seeing the flash, confirming that the hospital server has received the referral. It's very reassuring for them and us."

The system provides the hospital with case management tools and workflow facilities to enable referrals to be processed efficiently and provide safe storage and a full audit capability. The software speeds up the patient pre-registration process by providing semi-automatic entry into the PAS system, using colour coding to identify individual case status.

The system also records key events in the processing of the referral, allowing GPs to monitor the progress of each individual case in the event of any query.

Dr Morris estimates the software saves him personally at least 30 minutes every day - or around two weeks a year! "The real point of Medisec is that it makes the patient's hospital record (or at least, enough components of it to be a very worthwhile proxy), accessible to many users, at many locations. It's reliable, clinician-friendly and fully integrated with Vision, our GP system."