Interface For Primary Care and Secondary Care Online Booking System
The Challenge
GPs in the South East of England were using a well established primary care system (PCS) to record patient information at their health centre. When a patient needed to be referred to a specialist at a hospital the GP would print a letter from their PCS system to include all the medication, allergies and other clinical information necessary for the specialist. This would be printed and signed.
Many London Hospitals provide a secondary care (SCS) on-line booking system for GPs to book patients on appointments to hospitals but there was no integration between the SCS and PCS system. This meant that GPs still had to print letters and then double key all the information into the SCS. This process was clumsy and very time consuming.
The Primary Care Trust (PCT) wanted to integrate the PCS system with their SCS on-line booking system so that a GP could select a hospital to send a patient to and book an appointment with the specialist on-line whilst the patient was at the health centre. Ideally this would also automatically pass all relevant clinical information to a specialist.
The Solution
Qualitiva resources collaborated with the software vendors of both the PCS and SCS on-line booking system to analyse the requirements and provide an interface to allow both systems to communicate. We arranged for one of our development resources to work on site alongside the vendor of the PCS system where our interface software and the vendor’s modifications allowed provided the integration between the PCS and SCS booking systems. This automation link was delivered successfully, fully tested and deployed. This seamless booking method is now being used by all PCT’s and SCT’s throughout the South-East of England.
The Benefits
- PCT’s and SCT’s are much more efficient when booking and receiving patient appointments.
- Substantial reductions in man hours and manual processing at the PCT.
- Booking data for patient appointments is recorded once and sent automatically.
- GPs see no changes or impacts in their PCS system process or functionality.
- Patient booking process is accelerated.
- A GP is able to select a hospital to send the patient.
- Any changes are recorded and sent automatically.
- Human error and typing errors are eliminated.
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