In 2008 AxSys was commissioned to develop a Centralised Referral and Tracking system for NHS Highland to support the five Allied Healthcare Professionals (AHP) services of Physiotherapy, Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Podiatry and Speech & Language Therapy.

The system is now operational with connection to SCI Gateway and is currently being piloted in Grampian with the addition of the Excelicare Appointment Scheduler to manage AHP staff diaries. As part of this project AxSys has developed a remote data capture feature to support AHP working in remote and rural areas where no network connectivity exists.

This development will ultimately support the 18 Week RTT requirements of NHS Grampian for Allied Healthcare Professional services.

This application was originally developed in collaboration between NHS Highland and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to support the UK government’s national ‘Pathways to Work’ programme.

This Service helps to provide support and assistance to unemployed jobseekers that have health related conditions preventing a return to work. The Excelicare Condition Management system records the data for clients from their initial referral through to discharge and incorporates assessment tools, Care plans, case management and automatic production of management information returns to DWP.

The system is now live and operational across Grampian and Lanarkshire and is attracting a great deal of interest from other Condition Management Programmes across the UK. The system is augmented by the Excelicare ‘Offline Synchronisation’ facility which supports access to Excelicare in remote and rural areas where no network connectivity exists.

In 2009 AxSys was awarded the contract to design and deliver an integrated Social Work IT system to support the operational requirements of the State Hospital Board for NHS Scotland.

The Social Work Service provided to The State Hospital (TSH) operates within a statutory framework and is determined by a Service Level Agreement detailing the core activities that will be provided. The statutory services provided include Mental Health Officer Services, Assessment and Care Management, Criminal Justice Social Work, Child Protection etc. and entail working directly with patients and families where there are complex needs and risks. The statutory responsibilities of the Social Work Service include the preparation of reports, e.g. Social Circumstance Reports under the Mental Health Act 2003. Core activities include social work reports on all patients for clinical teams in respect of admissions, reviews and transfers.

Previously the delivery of the Social Work Service reports within TSH was supported via a series of Access Databases and Microsoft Word™ templates which required skilled limited resources to manually extract and manipulate data to produce. This exercise was a non-automated, time consuming and potentially error prone process.
The deployment of the Excelicare Social Work system is intended to deliver the following benefits:-

• Provide enhanced reporting capabilities using Excelicare Reporting tools
• Improve the quality of captured information in a structured manner.
• To provide a single electronic source of patient information relevant to Social Work.
• Improve upon the service efficiency of the State Hospital Social Work department
• Enable staff workloads to be monitored, assessed and managed
• To provide greater information security across patient and services.
• To integrate with other third party systems (e.g. PAS)

Following an open OJEU tender process AxSys was awarded the contract to design, develop and implement an integrated Excelicare electronic patient record (EPR) system to support Liverpool PCT. This was a partnership project working with Liverpool PCT staff including Dr Anne Webb, Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Liverpool PCT.

Liverpool PCT Sexual Health services provide Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services including clinical care for contraception, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and reproductive health but also support the public health and social care requirements of their patients.

The Excelicare SRH solution employs secure role-based access to allow clinicians to see the full patient record but restricting other staff in the clinic such as receptionists and admin staff to see patient’s full records.

The Liverpool Excelicare SRH system has also been developed to include the delivery and maintenance of the recently introduced Sexual and Reproductive Health Activity Data Set (SHRAD) and the impending GUMCAD2 reports required from the providers of enhanced sexual health services (ESHS).

The Sexual and Reproductive Health Activity Data Set will provide essential data to support and monitor the delivery of a number of key Government National Strategies aimed at reducing teenage pregnancies in England and improving sexual health. These strategies include:

Working in collaboration with Dr Kaveh Manavi (Consultant Physician in GUM/HIV Medicine at the Birmingham Whittal Street GU medicine clinic) AxSys has developed an integrated EPR system for Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) which will enable the clinic to completely migrate away from their paper based patient records.

Through the use of Excelicare, the department will be able to provide patients with maximum choice for booking appointments through a web based patient portal, automated telephone systems, or by attending the department on a walk-in basis. The system will ensure all patients are offered an appointment within 48 hours. Patients can also choose between the department’s clinics operated at different sites at each time.

Instead of using reception station, patients will confirm their arrival at the department via self-registration kiosks. Through use of patient portal/kiosks the patients will also be triaged; those deemed asymptomatic will be directed to “quick test clinic” whereas symptomatic patients will be directed to see a doctor.

The BWS EPR provides clinical users with a unique view of the clinical record relevant to their role and the patient’s current progress through a care pathway. It incorporates advanced telecommunication, integration, multi-media and decision support technologies within a clinician-friendly Electronic Patient Record framework, assisting healthcare professionals by providing intelligence to support best practice and the delivery of quality & timely care.

The system has been designed not only to provide information to the right people at the right time but also to bring real clinical value to those using the system. Allowing doctors, nurses, health advisors; health care assistants, clerical staff and biomedical scientists to manage all aspects of patient care within the patient pathway from self-registration/triage, through assessment, treatment, prescription and partner notification allowing all end users to record their findings in the system electronically.

The EPR automatically codes patients’ diagnoses based on their history, physical examination, and laboratory findings. This feature allows for the system to identify patients not treated completely and to notify them automatically through text messages or letters when appropriate.

Patients will be informed of their results immediately after their authorisation in the laboratory. The system sends automated text messages to consenting patients’ mobiles with their test results. The messages vary according to diagnosis and include instructions for partner notification when required. Patients may be informed of their results through letters if they wish to.

The system allows for clinical summaries to be composed immediately after completion of patients’ visit, thereby reducing the administrative time for generating such letters.