Medisec Software Adds A&E To Trust

Clinical correspondence specialist, Medisec Software has added A&E capability to its software package linking secondary and primary care.

The updated Medisec Trust software allows hospitals to offer their GP partners access to real-time clinical patient information and A&E reports, giving them an instant update on their patients.

Alongside clinic attendance letters, discharge notification forms, discharge summaries and radiology reports, A&E letters are generated for automatic electronic delivery to GPs.

The front end of the software is tailored specifically for medical secretaries with a patient search facility providing access to detailed information on current patient status, including clinic attendance, future appointments, admissions, correspondence and test results. A GP search button also provides contact details for all the GPs on the system.

The technology has helped medical secretaries at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Cheshire to make considerable efficiency gains, saving between 40% and 60% of a typical working day.

Marion Zazzi, Medical Secretary at the Countess of Chester explains how: “We get lots of calls every day from GPs asking about anything from test results to changes in medication or appointment queries.  Before Medisec, in many cases we would have to physically locate the patient file notes and then search through them to find the answer.  As file notes are often scattered throughout the hospital, this was obviously a very inefficient use of time. Now we can answer the majority of enquiries instantly on the phone.”

The paperless approach offers the Trust a number of obvious benefits.  “As well as cutting our paper-handling costs significantly,  the centralised storage and retrieval of information reduces risk and puts us in much more control over both content and presentation of hospital correspondence,” says Monique Duffy, Assistant Director IM&T – Planning & Development, Countess of Chester. “It means that we can monitor the whole process much more efficiently.”

By delivering patient information quickly and securely, the software gives surgeries high quality information at the right time.  Instead of arriving weeks after the patient has left the hospital, discharge information can now be issued and accessed overnight, helping GPs to offer their patients higher standards of after-care.

Dr David Morris from St Mark’s Dee View Surgery in Flintshire comments: “Medisec Software has been pivotal in improving the quality and availability of patient information in the local health community and has had a direct benefit to patient care. A patient can potentially visit A&E at the Countess in the morning and come to us for follow-up care the next day and we will be fully up-to-speed with his condition and developments at the hospital.”

The software also helps to identify where there are bottlenecks in the system.    Medisec automatically keeps a count on the number of days delay between a patient being discharged and the relevant discharge note being issued to their GP, prompting staff to chase up dictation notes from the relevant consultant.

The system allows secretaries to copy in other healthcare partners on critical clinical correspondence, automatically sending information on certain health problems affecting children to their school, for example, or orthodontics updates to dentists.

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has recently been awarded a three star top ranking, for the fifth year, in the Healthcare Commission’s independent assessment for achieving all of the eight national targets.  These included the new A & E 4-hour treatment target, waiting times for outpatient appointments and patient booking.