SCR goes mobile in Medway

Medway health professionals are the first to get mobile access to the NHS Summary Care Record while they are making home visits.

Advanced Health and Care has been given NHS Connecting for Health approval to provide mobile access to the SCR following four months of intensive testing.

Mobile access was piloted by Medway Community Healthcare via its urgent care service, Medway on Call Care.

The pilot finished last month and feedback was “extremely positive”, a company statement said.

Karen Morgan, Medway Community Healthcare assistant director of operations, described the introduction of SCR mobile. 

She said it would be a “welcome addition to the successful management of Medway patients in their own homes by both visiting GPs and community nursing teams in the out-of-hours arena.”

The SCR has been integrated with Advanced’s Adastra patient management system in urgent care and out-of-hours centres since 2008.

It will now be made available to all mobile customers of iNurse and Adastra Remote, enabling them to view an SCR via Adastra while in a patient’s home.

Advanced Health and Care managing director Jim Chase said the mobile SCR would support clinicians in the community.

“This is a landmark development that is key to reducing expensive hospital admissions,” he added.

About 16m patients in England have an SCR. The latest Operating Framework for the NHS in England says its roll out should be complete by the end of the current financial year, 2012-13.