Generic Clinical System Lynda G Lawson

Overview GCS in context So what is GCS? What’s happened and what’s next Some of the challenges

GCS and eHealth Strategy Key ‘gap filler’ to provide IT support for clinical care Linked with national strategic products Underpinned by national information standards Key enabler in eHealth programme plans to support ‘Delivering for Health’

Background to Requirement A multitude of small clinical departmental systems across NHS Scotland Varying standards, technologies, support and funding Isolated systems often with no ability to share patient information Disparate pockets of skills and experience

GCS aims to Bring a standard approach to clinical application development Enable patient information sharing through support for data standards Allow for re-use of applications – stop reinventing the wheel Grow a common developer skill-set Build systems that will become familiar to clinicians Facilitate migration of unsupported or troubled clinical systems

So what is GCS? Not a ‘complete’ system, but a set of standard core components with flexible design tools For building diverse clinical applications on the same foundations Supporting use of national standards Yet customisable for local use and clinical specialty

Standard Generic Clinical System Framework Clinical Notes, Review, Collaboration, Security, Audit trail, Reporting and other generic clinical system functions come ‘out of the box’ Other configuration tools available to support Clinical Networks and Multi Disciplinary working

Configuring Excelicare Designer Tools enable the creation of clinical modules, which can include sophisticated data capture forms, summary documents, letters and charts.

Forms can contain check boxes, images, list boxes and other data entry controls, with the ability to embed complex validation algorithms to ensure data reliability

Fields from any part of the patient record can be ‘dropped’ to form a template A document designer allows the creation of letter templates and summary documents

Chart designer can be used to create clinical charts

Protocols, guidelines and other types of documents can be associated with the patient record as part of a ‘disease/condition pack’

What did we buy? A national licence for use of Excelicare for NHS Scotland Support and maintenance for 5 years All modules built with the toolset belong to NHS Scotland Option to use Excelicare tools ourselves, use GCS Supplier at fixed rates or commission other third parties

Progress to date Contract awarded December 2005 First phase of development work completed in March 2006 Live early adopter sites for breast cancer and preparation for go-live for gynae cancers Live GCS for Eating Disorders services Progress with Early Developer projects Go ahead for GCS for stroke services High level of enthusiasm and interest across NHS Scotland

Early Adopter Projects Early implementations for Cancer and Mental Health Prove that GCS can deliver to diverse specialties Demonstrate that local projects can work successfully with the product & supplier Inform further planning

Early Developer Project Prove the toolset in a live development environment – SCI Diabetes Collaboration Demonstrate the potential for toolset usage by NHS Scotland developers Identify knowledge transfer & support requirements Inform further planning

Preparing for Wider Roll-out Technical integration with national products Robust support for data standards GCS forms library Support & training structures Guidance for GCS usage Widespread communication Continued alignment with evolving eHealth strategy

Some of the challenges GCS is a learning process - Early Adopter and Early Developer projects are helping to uncover the issues Support for the national data dictionary and forms library Version control and development standards Readiness – both of the toolset and its prospective users Communication

But that said… This is innovative and exciting stuff Clinicians like and support it And it’s starting to deliver!

Thank You