North West Ambulance’s Electronic Referral Wins Award

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s Electronic Referral and Information Sharing System (ERISS) has won an award.

The Trust’s project received first prize, “Innovation of the Year 2014,” at the recent Informatics Skills Development (ISD) Network awards.

“The improvement in information sharing and decision making provided by ERISS has made a real difference to patients across the North West,” claimed Phil James, the Trust’s head of programme management office.

“We are thrilled to be recognised as an innovator in providing integrated patient care and look forward to adding exciting new features to ERISS that further enables us to deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place,” he added.

According to the healthcare organisation, the web-based ERISS application enables North West Ambulance to efficiently and securely manage the transfer of patient information in referral processes such as safeguarding, falls and diabetes.

The Trust also claims it supports staff because it can identify pathways that are available based on a patient’s postcode or GP.

The system is also capable of allowing healthcare professionals to alert the organisation of any care plans that are in place for certain types of patients, for example community care plans, end of life plan and oxygen alert cards.

By providing access to such plans, clinicians are able to provide safe care closer to home, reducing transfers to emergency departments.

Challenges Overcome, Security Improved

The Trust claims the 2013-implemented ERISS has allowed it to overcome IT integration challenges and rapidly increase the number of organisations it shares information with without compromising information security and governance.

The system has 2658 actives users across 267 GP practices, 88 acute and community teams and 51 social service teams.

Around 15,000 referrals and 5000 alerts have been processed via ERISS.

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