About Us | Contact Us | Help | Sign Up | Job Vacancies

February 2016

Audit+ GP tool being used to monitor Guillain-Barré syndrome

A GP auditing tool, Audit+, is being used to monitor symptoms and cases of atypical Guillain-Barré syndrome following a recently identified cluster of cases.

Public Health Wales, working with the NHS Wales Informatics Service are setting in place a GP surveillance, through Audit+, to investigate if similar increases in less severe symptoms have been observed in the community.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare illness that leaves patients with facial weakness or paralysis. Unusual forms of Guillian-Barre Syndrome were reported in ten men and 'acute flaccid paralysis' in four children in South Wales who became ill between September and December last year.

Audit+ is a computer application system managed by the NHS Wales Informatics Service which can identify and report symptoms of diseases, as well as enabling a wide range of other tasks to assist with patient management and reporting in relation to local and national initiatives.

Portal puts priorities in order

New functionality in Welsh Clinical Portal allows consultants to sort referrals in order of clinical need

Pilots have completed in two NHS Wales health boards that use e-referral functionality within the Welsh Clinical Portal that allow consultants to route referrals electronically for more practical online prioritisation.

The Welsh Patient Referral System (or the WPRS - previously known as HERS2) uses the Welsh Clinical Communication Gateway to receive e-referrals. It sorts and displays them into levels of importance (for example as: Urgent Suspected Cancer, Urgent or Routine) for secondary care clinicians.

The consultant can accept the referral, place it on hold, request more information from the GP or return it to the GP. The system allows greater clinical dialogue between secondary and primary care.

The pilot has successfully completed in Cardiff and Vale and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg health boards and plans are being made for national rollout.

My Health Online numbers rise

More patients and practices are using the online service for repeat prescriptions and online bookings

The numbers of GP Practices signing up to My Health Online continues to rise with nearly three quarters of all Welsh practices offering either online repeat prescriptions, appointment bookings, or both.

Primary Care in North Wales is leading the way with 93 of the 112 practices in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board using elements of My Health Online - over 80% of them using it for online prescriptions.

Patients using the service is rapidly growing too. It is anticipated nearly 200,000 patients will have signed up to My Health Online by this summer.

Ewch i'n gwefan am fersiwn iaith Gymraeg o'r cylchlythyr hwn.

Informatics@Events

Showcasing Innovation

NHS Wales Informatics Service will be joining more than three thousand health professionals at UK eHealth Week at Olympia London on the 19-20 April.

The event highlights the latest in e-Health innovations across the UK.

Our Clinical Informaticist Raman Behl will be speaking about his role equipping Allied Health Professions with the latest information tools.

Wendy Dearing, Head of the Informatics Service Professional Development team, who has recently taken over as Chair of the British Computer Society Health in Wales group, will be talking about 'Transforming the Workforce.'

For more information or to register for the event, visit:

ukehealthweek.com

Griffiths to give keynote at Digital Health Summit

CIO for Health in Wales Andrew Griffiths will be delivering a keynote speech about digital healthcare in Wales to an international team of CIOs and healthcare executives at the Digital Health Leadership Summit at the end of February.

The summit includes workshops to discuss digital healthcare challenges and solutions.

Informatics in Numbers

> 3.9 million

More than 3.9 million outpatient attendances were booked in 2015 across six Welsh health boards and trusts using the Welsh Patient Adminsitration System (WPAS).

WPAS, formerly known as Myrddin, records and displays patients' administrative details and has been developed to fully integrate with the Welsh Clinical Portal and Master Patient Index.

Informatics in Words

Creating electronic solutions

"The most impressive aspect is how the clinicians and non clinicians combine their respective skills and teams work under time pressure to create electronic solutions to real NHS problems. Some of the software products really could add value to patient outcomes with the appropriate support."

Medical Director Rhidian Hurle after judging the NHS Hack Day in Cardiff in January.

The Hack Day is a two day-long freeform, brainstorming event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development collaborate intensively on software projects.

Gwybodeg yng Nhgymraeg

A Welsh language version of this newsletter is available

If you would like our monthly newsletter emailed to you in Welsh, please contact us at:

nwisenquiries @wales.nhs.uk

. . .and we'll include you on our new mailing list.

Follow Us

NHS Wales Informatics Service | | nwisenquiries@wales.nhs.uk | http://www.wales.nhs.uk/informatics