From ERDIP to ICRS: lessons learnt from the evaluation of the South
Staffordshire EHR Project
Electronic medical-record systems aim to improve the working lives of
clinicians. How can their architects and builders be sure they are on
course to deliver useful results before such systems are completed?
Dr Susan Clamp, Dr Heather Heathfield and Derek Felton offer
an evaluation framework that has proved its worth.
keywords: electronic
healthcare records, integrated care records service, electronic record
development and implementation programme, research and development,
systems design, systems implementation, project evaluation.
abstract
External evaluation of the South Staffordshire project in the
electronic record development and implementation programme (ERDIP)
highlights major challenges that will need to be overcome to implement
the Integrated Care Records Services (ICRS) successfully. Evaluation
must play an integral role in ICRS. It should start early, and include a
coherent structured framework (such as the evaluation hierarchy), a
strong formative element, and clear lines of feedback and responsibility
for action. The role of PCTs is particularly important and future ICRS
implementations need to establish the right management arrangements to
ensure that developments are aligned with local delivery plans,
healthcare improvement strategies and service modernisation. The
division of responsibilities between the NHS and the supplier needs to
be set out in detail and needs to address issues such as system strategy
development, policy for sharing data, allocation of responsibility for
process redesign and benefits realisation, project management roles and
integration of systems across boundaries.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2003; 20(10): 31–3. |
