The Health Foundation has called on the Government to set out a strategy for the effective use of electronic patient records (EPRs) by NHS organisations.
The charity – which works on improving healthcare and inequalities – has published a briefing on the issue highlighting its findings that, although most NHS trusts in England now have an EPR system in palce, many are not yet using them to their full potential.
It has based its findings on interviews with leaders in five acute trusts and an example of a US medical centre.
Among the issues undermining the effectiveness of the EPRs is that many clinicians are not used to recording their interactions with patients in a formalised way, which affects the quality of data in the systems, and that access to data from suppliers is not always as straightforward as it should be.
Data problems
The briefing says that a more detailed understanding of the data access agreements between trusts and EPR providers is needed, and that it could be facilitated by the upcoming Data Use and Access Bill.
There are also issues around training staff to use the systems effectively, with an emphasis on ensuring that they understand the importance of entering data accurately and comprehensively.
In addition, there is a need for training on how to use the more advanced functions to generate insights. This requires building a culture in which staff are ‘in dialogue with’ the EPR, the Health Foundation says.
It also points out that NHS trusts rarely have the data scientists, engineers and research staff available to extract and use the data, with most of the funding going to the day-to-day upkeep of the EPRs.
“Having people and resources specifically dedicated to developing new ways of working, through using the higher order functionalities of EPRs, would enable trusts to tap into much greater benefits,” the briefing says.
“This could help staff to use tools that are often available but underutilised, such as appointment management, automatic triaging of patients who don’t need to be seen in person, or synthesising patient appointments in one portal.”
Urgent need
It adds that, in response to these issues, the Government urgently needs to set out an EPR strategy for benefits realisation, both to ensure that trusts are getting the basics right and to help make use of the higher order functionalities, including AI.
This should be accompanied by trusts developing their own plans to sit alongside a national roadmap and will require more funding. The money would be used for implementation support, ongoing maintenance, improvement and optimisation.
The briefing acknowledges that it will be a challenge to find the resources but says that trusts without access to support will struggle to develop and use the higher functions of EPRs.
The Health Foundations says: “With 100% EPR coverage in sight, now is the right time for the government to put a strategy in place for the next stage of the EPR journey. This strategy should cover both how to get the basics right and how to develop more advanced uses of EPRs.
“As part of this, individual trusts should be asked to develop their own plans for the next stages of EPR usage.”
