Find out more about what NISG does for ECS, ePCS and KIS.

KIS FAQ’s

For more detail about KIS, please see the Clinical FAQ’s document here: 2013-02-14 KIS FAQ’s v2.3

KIS Patient FAQ’s

A Patient FAQ’s has also been developed. This is to be used in conjunction with the Patient Leaflet and is targeted specifically at patients. It is available here: 2013-04-05 KIS Patient FAQ’s v2.0

KIS Patient Leaflet

The KIS Project Team have developed a Patient Leaflet. It is available here: 2012-10-09 KIS Patient Leaflet v1.0

The HeRS project is an IT solution to receive and manage electronic clinical messages within and between health boards, maximising the benefits of the Welsh Clinical Communications Gateway (WCCG) e-Referrals project.  NISG were commissioned by NHS Wales to rebrand the SCI Gateway, creating the WCCG.  It went live in 2009, and we continue to work closely with colleagues in Wales to support its continued development and associated benefits realisation.

HeRS, developed within NHS Wales, supports patient workflow, initially allowing medical records departments to electronically manage the messages and add patients to an outpatient waiting list.  The next stage will allow clinicians to vet referrals online through the Welsh Clinical Portal, reducing the need to print referral letters. This will bring many benefits for Health Boards in Wales, most importantly the safe, secure and fast electronic transmission of patient data between clinicians, health records and administrative staff.

For more information please contact Val Borland, Implementation Manager, NISG, at val.borland@nhs.net.

A project and Project Board were created, chaired by Dr Iain Wallace (Medical Director, NHS Forth Valley), which had representation from Health Boards with a prison as well as SPS.  On 1st May 2012 the first prison went live with an NHS Grampian centrally-hosted InPS Vision prison system.  On 8th June all 16 prison establishments across nine Health Boards were connected and using the Vision system.  A centrally-hosted solution provides the best way forward for prisoner healthcare, especially in terms of a single set of electronic notes when considering the high number of prisoner transfers and repeat offenders.  This approach was endorsed by the Caldicott Guardians.

Before going live, the Vision system was pre-populated with over 90,000 migrated GPASS records and subsequently synchronised with the SPS-owned prisoner records system (PR2). This PR2 synchronisation allows Vision to automatically create, amend or inactivate patients’ records with key demographic data, e.g. name, DoB, address, prison establishment, hall and cell.  In addition, a quick prisoner health admission guideline has been put into the Vision system to ensure an accurate and consistent health assessment upon admission, as required by law.

Since going live, feedback from clinicians has been extremely positive and complimentary about the efforts put in by NISG, other NSS divisions, Health Boards and InPS, on what has been a large and complex project. Work has begun on the next phase which aims to implement a prison-bespoke prescribing module that generates an electronic ‘Kardex®’ prescription  similar to those used in secondary care, rather than a GP10 as used in primary care.

Should you require further information about the project, please contact Dennis Betts at dennis.betts@nhs.net.

Find out more about what NISG does for ECS, ePCS and KIS.

Key Information Summary FAQs PDF.

With extensive experience in national projects for GPs, dentists and pharmacists, NISG has been commissioned by Health Boards in Scotland to support them in delivering the National Eye Care Integration Project, using our expertise in IT connectivity, development and testing.

The background

Better equipment and technology in optometry practices, new treatments in ophthalmology and rising numbers of elderly patients mean that huge benefits can be gained by improving the information flow between high street opticians and ophthalmology services in secondary care.

Health Boards have been asked to meet two key targets by April 2014:

• 95% of referrals from optometrists to hospital eye services will be done electronically with the necessary changes in place; and
• 95% of all optometry claims will be made electronically.

The National Eye Care Integration Project focuses on providing optometrists with IT connectivity and electronic referrals and will enable them to submit electronic payment claims to National Services Scotland Practitioner Services Division (PSD).

The connectivity environment is also being developed with a view to reusing it for dentists and pharmacists.

The benefits

NISG is a key player in a project which is aimed at delivering accessible, responsive, appropriate and integrated eye care services throughout Scotland.   The IT linkage will enable the realisation of key benefits such as:

• reductions in the time from referral to treatment;
• allocation of patient to correct clinic at first hospital visit;
• reductions in unscheduled attendances;
• identification of patients suitable for community care;
• reconfiguration of hospital eye service capacity;
• receipt and feedback on referral from hospital to optometry.

If you would like to know more, please contact Pam McVeigh, Department Manager – New Business, NISG, at pmcveigh@nhs.net.

Find out more about what NISG does for ECS, ePCS and KIS.

Key Information Summary FAQs PDF 

ECS KIS Newsletter PDF

Find out more about what NISG does for ECS, ePCS and KIS.

Key Information Summary FAQs PDF 

The NISG team delivered this release on schedule despite a number of major pressures on resources, for example organisational change.  The live date was ahead of schedule within Wales, and NHS Wales raised no issues during the user acceptance testing stage, which is testament to the high quality of both development and testing carried out by the teams.

Seventy per cent of GP Practices in Wales are now sending hospital referrals electronically with the remainder due to go live by the end of March 2012. Discharge messages are also being sent via the WCCG from hospitals to GP practices.

NISG looks forward to continuing to work collaboratively with colleagues in NHS Wales to support the ongoing success of the WCCG. 

For more information please contact Val Borland, Implementation Manager, NISG, at val.borland@nhs.net.

eHealth Insider article

An in-house, expert resource reduces the need for outsourced assistance, and maximises the benefits of the Scottish Government’s investment in the Ensemble product and associated services.

Having completed a challenging commission from the Scottish Government Health Directorates (SGHD) eHealth Programme, the team is forging ahead with a significant programme of work.

Migration of existing NISG eLinks applications from Clearspan to Ensemble including:

• Organ Donor messaging from GP practices to National Services Scotland (NSS) Practitioner Services Division (current status: live).
• Other applications, including Partners, SCCRS-GP, Quality and Outcomes Framework (QoF) Reporting and Docman Transfer (current status: in development).
• Development for the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to transfer data from the prison records system to their new GP clinical system (current status: in development).

Development of national adapters:

• As part of the SGHD commission, NISG has developed adapters for SCI Store and SCI Gateway, which are being used in several NHS Boards.
• Emergency Care Summary (ECS) adapters are being developed to use the new version of ECS web services for the Key Information Summary (KIS) and these will be available soon.

Proof of concept for generic IT screening solution:

The team has developed an Ensemble demonstrator model based on the Scottish Breast Screening and Bowel Screening (BoSS) programmes.  This generic approach to delivering screening, rather than having many separate and potentially overlapping systems, is in line with the national eHealth strategy of re-using existing IT systems wherever possible.

Ensemble interfaces for electronic Employee Support System (eESS):

NISG is developing the interfaces for the new NHSScotland HR system in partnership with Atos Origin Alliance and InterSystems. The team is currently producing technical specifications and the target completion date for the interface is early February 2012.

National Managed Clinical Networks (NMCNs) integration:

We are providing an integration layer between instances of the clinical audit system across individual NMCNs and have started developing a proof of concept to confirm the integration model.

If you would like further information on Ensemble, please contact Lesley Neilan at lesley.neilan@nhs.net