At East Cheshire Hospice, we’ve revolutionised our approach by implementing a new clinical system, EMIS Web. As a generic electronic patient record (EPR), it provides an excellent tool for storing and sharing the medical history about every patient. We have then tailored the system to the meet our needs as a hospice. Within EMIS Web, we have designed and created a range of templates and protocols to make sure we can record, share, report and use the specific information we need provide the very best end of life care.

We achieved level two for the Information Governance Toolkit. To share information with the other local providers, we gained access to N3 – the NHS’ secure network connecting thousands of different NHS organisations. Information sharing agreements were established with all of the partners within the pilot group – including the amount and detail of the information needed – to ensure all consent procedures were in place.

We then introduced a new clinical system, EMIS Web, in the hospice enabling data sharing between other organisations. Being able to interoperate with other clinical systems across the health economy was crucial to our success. Data was transferred from existing systems, we created specific templates to meet our needs as a hospice and staff training rolled out to ensure optimum use and benefits.

By designing a series of templates and protocols we now have a clinical system that meets our needs perfectly. We have a consistent and timely mechanism for recording and sharing all vital patient information – from referral details, to adding patients to the end of life care register, EPaCCS, to personalised care plans and patient wishes. We can ensure that all care plan documents are added and that specific elements of care plans are evaluated from pain and depression, to mobility and nutrition.