News
NHSScotland rolls out National Sexual Health IT System
13 March 2008
NHSScotland is rolling out its new National Sexual Health (NaSH) IT
System to provide a common IT platform to support specialist sexual
health services for the 12 NHS Boards across Scotland.
The system will help improve the quality, range and consistency,
accessibility and cohesion of the delivery of services to patients.
Working with AxSys Technology, the NaSH Project Board’s Reference Group
has designed and developed the NaSH system based on AxSys' Excelicare
product
The system is due to ‘go live’ at NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Ayrshire
and Arran this month. Following this, the system will be gradually
rolled out across the remainder of NHSScotland.
The NaSH system is a key component of the National Sexual Health
Strategy: Respect and Responsibility: A Strategy and Action Plan for
Improving Sexual Health, launched in 2005. The strategy sets out a
framework for improving sexual health in Scotland by enhancing access to
information and services whilst enabling flexibility for local services
to respond to local requirements. It also highlighted the need to be
able to review existing data and develop a data collection framework to
provide a more accurate picture of sexual health and wellbeing in
Scotland, in terms of both sexual ill health and behaviours and
attitudes.
To support these objectives the new NaSH system will provide a
national solution to incorporate all sexual health services that are
currently being delivered in both primary and secondary environments,
including family planning and genito-urinary medicine (GUM) and will be
used in other areas where sexual health clinical encounters occur, such
as acute HIV, community gynaecology, counselling, community pharmacy and
General Practitioner services.
Once fully rolled out the Sexual Health System will support between
1200 to 1500 clinical and administrative staff working across 200 sexual
health clinical sites treating over 400,000 patients, and which is
expected to grow by 20-30% over the next five years.
This means delivery of a modern country-wide, multi-agency service
and as information can be shared between the various clinical
disciplines this will create the first steps towards developing a sexual
health electronic patient record in Scotland.
Dr Alison Bigrigg, Chair of the NaSH Board and Director of The
Sandyford Initiative in Glasgow said, "To meet the objectives of the
Sexual Health Strategy, it was clear we had to overcome the inadequacies
of the existing sexual health information system. Before NaSH there was
no standard approach to the gathering of information from the range of
sexual health services; there was a distinct lack of IT systems and
support within the clinical environment and there was little or no
integration between the traditional specialities of family planning and
genitourinary medicine.
"This meant that statistical, clinical, patient and administrative
information across sexual health services was hard to obtain and share
and holding paper records in isolated locations was not conducive to
delivering a fast and convenient healthcare service.
“With a growing population of sexual health patients with increasing
expectations, continuing to operate non-integrated paper based clinics
across Scotland simply could not be sustained.
"The NaSH project was therefore set up to help address these issues
by developing a robust IT system which would improve communication and
co-ordination across all sexual health services; improve standards of
service delivery and patient care and provide the building block upon
which the intended Sexual Health Service could grow.”
The NaSH Project Board and its Reference Group includes wide-ranging
representation from clinical, managerial, technical and administrative
stakeholders from across NHSScotland to ensure that the new system meets
the needs of all elements of sexual health services.
Its key objectives have been to find a solution that follows a
patient-centric process; streamlines clinical, operational and financial
processes to enhance service provision; reduces administrative time used
by clinicians; improves patient access to all sexual health services and
relevant information; facilitates clinical governance and audit;
integrates with screening laboratories; enhances multidisciplinary and
multi-organisation collaboration and is scalable with the ability to
accommodate a minimum of 10 years' online data without affecting
performance.
Once fully rolled out the NaSH System will provide a joined up Sexual
Health Service where patients have easy access to efficient local,
community-based clinics. Working at site, health board and national
levels it will also provide a national sexual health database that will
result in more effective information on which to base public health
initiatives. The NaSH system will be capable of providing all mandatory
Scottish National Returns for the Sexual Health Service and produce
agreed reports relevant to the Key Clinical Indicators for Sexual Health
in Scotland.
"Within sexual health services, accessibility, choice, efficiency and
confidentiality are all key requirements for the patient. NaSH aims to
provide this and will deliver significant benefits," said Dr Bigrigg.
"The new system will create a truly joined-up service whilst
streamlining the operational day-to-day process of running individual
sexual health clinics. Automating the process of data collection will
dramatically improve data quality which will have a positive bearing on
audit and clinical governance and patient turnaround times.
"The system will also enhance the efficiency and productivity of
screening as clinics will be integrated with the laboratories so results
can be delivered electronically. It also means we can communicate and
deliver results to patients via email, phone or text and protect patient
anonymity if requested. Eliminating paper records and manual systems
will just make the whole process much smoother for staff and patients
and by creating integrated care records this will provide clinicians
with reference material at the point of care."
Commenting on the roll out of the NaSH system, Dr Pradeep Ramayya,
CEO AxSys Technology said, “With so much emphasis nationally on the
importance of creating greater consistency and convergence of IT
applications and infrastructure, the NaSH project is proof that this can
be achieved. However, this is not just about technology but about how it
can facilitate the creation of a nation-wide system that can deliver a
patient-centric service at a community level.
"With the national roll out of the Sexual Health IT System this will
demonstrate once again the benefits of facilitating multidisciplinary
collaboration and effective sharing of information and the creation of
electronic patient records.”
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