Liverpool IM&T manager honoured

Kate Warriner, Liverpool Primary Care Trust’s IM&T primary care programme manager, has been awarded this year’s John Perry Prize by the British Computer Society’s Primary Healthcare Specialist Group.

The prize, which is awarded yearly if there is an outstanding contribution to primary care computing, was given to Warriner for a series of projects around shared care records using EMIS Web technology.

In one project that forms part of the ‘new health service for Liverpool’ strategy, the PCT has worked with Royal Liverpool University Hopsital to run a primary care diversion service.

Clinicians working for the service can view a summary of the patient’s primary care medical record via EMIS Web, with patient consent, and then make an appointment for the patient with a GP if appropriate.

In another project, clinicians running joint injection anti-coagulant checks and minor surgery clinics are also able to access a summary of the patient’s primary care medical record via EMIS Web.

Further projects providing access to the summary record for staff working in Accident and Emergency and out of hours services are about to go live.

Warriner said she was abolsutely delighted to win the award and said interoperability was the key to all the work that had been done.

She told EHI Pirmary Care: “The most important factor in our success is that this has been led by our clinicians through practice based commissioning groups and through working with the Local Medical Committee, who have been able to shape the way things have developed.”

Warriner said that although 90% of practices in Liverpool use EMIS, the PCT was also working with INPS and iSoft. She added: “Other PCTs ask me ‘how did you achieve this?’ and I say it is all down to the commitment, ideas and leadership of the clinicians.”

Related events:

Some of the key concepts behind ‘a new health service for Liverpool’ will be explained during the Best Practice Showcase at this week’s Healthcare Interoperability event and exhibition in Birmingham.

A new health service for Liverpool is also one of the finalists in the Excellence in Healthcare Information Management section of this year’s BT e-Health Insider awards.