Plans are underway to replace paper with a digital system at Wales' critical care units.

The NHS Wales informatics Service is working closely with the NHS Wales Health Collaborative to run a procurement for a Critical Care Clinical Information System (CCCIS) that will pull data automatically from the many bedside devices used to support the patient. These include bedside monitors, ventilators and infusion pumps.

Typically, a critically ill patient may undergo frequent or continuous monitoring of dozens of physical and biological parameters, generating an enormous amount of data recorded on paper-based notes and charts. Introducing a digital system will streamline this process, reducing harm and variation.

Wales currently uses a digital system at two critical care units. The procurement will secure a single system for use across Wales. The initial scope is for Wales' 200 critical care beds, with the option to increase this over the seven-year contract period.

The new digital system will need to integrate with the NHS Wales' architecture and link with national services, including Welsh Clinical Portal and the Welsh Patient Administration System.

The procurement will be overseen by a procurement board with representatives across the all-Wales Critical Care Network and includes health professionals and technical experts.

It is anticipated that the procurement will be complete by the end of 2019, followed by a phased roll out beginning with the new Specialist Critical Care Centre (The Grange University Hospital) being built to serve the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.

Swansea's Morriston Hospital is using new functionality in WCP to maintain accurate inpatient lists - tracking patients' admissions, transfers and discharges in real time. Live inpatient lists can save hospital staff time when retrieving clinical information, such as accessing test results or accessing patients' GP summary records.

 

This is the latest update to the Welsh Clinical Portal - the digital health record application used by hospitals in Wales for information about patients and their care.

 

All medical wards at Morriston are piloting the new admission, discharge and transfer (ADT) service which links to the Welsh Patient Administration System (WPAS). It tracks patients from the point of admission to hospital, their transfers to other wards and hospitals, and their discharge.

 

"The new software ensures admission data about the patient is always up to date and available to support patient care," says David Sheard, Deputy Director ICT Programmes at the NHS Wales Informatics Service. "There isn't a time lag between the real-time admission and the patient's details being recorded and available through the patient administration system."

 

Following the pilot, the ADT release will be evaluated and made available to all health boards through the Welsh Clinical Portal.

 

Functionality to give portal users access to digital medicines transcribing and e-discharge services is also in pilot on Morriston Hospital's medical wards. This functionality is already in use at other health boards.

 

Medicines Transcribing improves medicines management by allowing hospital pharmacists to transcribe patient medications electronically.  This will support patients from admission to discharge.

 

e-Discharge allows clinicians to record a summary about a patient's hospital stay, which is sent electronically to the GP, avoiding the sometimes lengthy delays between discharge and information about the patient's care in hospital reaching the GP.

 

More information about the Welsh Clinical Portal is on our website.

Clinicians in Wales can now connect with decades of their patients' cardiovascular treatment history through the Welsh Clinical Portal (WCP).  

 

This year, important interfaces went live allowing new clinical letters and diagnostic results for patients with Congenital Heart Disease to be loaded into the Welsh Care Record Service (WCRS) and Welsh Results Report Service (WRRS) and then viewed through the Portal.

 

The interface connects with Cardiobase - the system supplier for the South Wales Congenital Heart Unit.

 

Now, working with Cardiobase, a backload of 22 years of patient treatment, clinical correspondence and results have also been loaded, allowing clinicians from across Wales to access a more complete history of their patient's care.

 

The WCRS is an electronic document repository that standardises documents - forms, referrals, letters, case notes, and much more - and allows them to be accessed and viewed by clinicians across health sector boundaries as well as being audited more easily.

 

The WRRS is an electronic results repository for diagnostic tests, which provides WCP users with the ability to view diagnostic reports and test requests for their patients regardless of where in Wales they were produced.

 

Each month, more than 3 7 ,000 reports stored in WRRS are viewed across Wales using the WCP.

The NWIS Service Desk services all of NHS Wales and acts as the single point of contact between local service desks and national support teams. It provides a focal point for reporting incidents and making service requests.  It also is the only service desk in NHS Wales to have been certified by the Service Desk Institute.