Care communities move to Covid-19 tracking using Graphnet’s shared records

Sharing information, and using that shared information to make complex decisions, has never been more important for the NHS as it copes with Covid-19.

Graphnet has been focused on supporting its customers by accelerating key shared record projects already underway, deploying new products and rolling out new releases of its software with new Covid-19 functionality. 

New Covid-19 features released to CareCentric shared record customers include a Covid-19 summary page for each patient which displays any available information to professionals across a care community.  Information such as Covid-19 tested, suspected diagnosis, and confirmed diagnosis is displayed in chronological order. In addition, an alert ‘pop-up’ flags the most clinical useful/important Covid-19 information about a patient when that patient record is accessed, and the information displayed includes ‘shielded patients’ so key professionals are aware of their status. 

Changes have also been made to display known advance care planning decisions, such as those concerning life sustaining treatments and the citizen’s wishes, and to make these very prominent in the shared record.

Some customers have deployed additional functionality. Frimley Health and Care ICS is in the process of incorporating information from the regional 111 service, for example, where a patient dialogue has resulted in highlighting the patient as a possible Covid-19 case, and then flagging this to clinicians who view the record.

The use of analytics layered on top of the shared record has real transformative potential, even more so in the current crisis.  Graphnet’s population health team is currently rolling out the CareCentric Population Health Analytics Covid-19 dashboard. 

The dashboard analyses primary and secondary care data to identify citizens with a Covid-19 event. It also includes an ‘enhanced case finding’ function to allow searches which identify patients at risk and in need of intervention.  The dashboard is an operational tool and can also help predict demand. 

Elsewhere, shared records that would usually take six months or more to put in are being deployed in a matter of weeks.

Brian Waters, chief executive of Graphnet, said: “As well as focussing on new functionality, we are very aware that Covid-19 use cases for our products continue to emerge from our customers, where people have used or deployed products in innovative ways to help with the crisis.  We are documenting these and making them available to the entire user base.  Our focus is on working as flexibly as possible to best support our customers, prioritising clinical safety while reducing any cumbersome administrative barriers.

He added: “The coming weeks will be particularly challenging for everyone working in health and social care and we are committed to assist our customers in any way we can during the outbreak.”