InterSystems to Support NHS Fife's Plans for Connected Healthcare

NHS Fife has become the latest health board in Scotland to adopt a new patient information system which will support the development of a single electronic health record for patients. Developed by InterSystems, TrakCare enables health boards in Scotland to share essential information securely across organisations and geographical boundaries using a unified health information system.

Serving a mixed urban and rural area, NHS Fife provides hospital-based and community care for the board's 370,000 residents, managing over 420,000 outpatient visits and 98,000 emergency patients episodes every year. The implementation of TrakCare will allow clinical staff from across the organisation to securely access, manage and update a patient's essential health information using a single master patient index (MPI) the National Community Health Index (CHI) number.

The consolidation of health information into a single record will also support staff in their clinical decision making, ensuring that these decisions are even better informed and providing opportunity to improve patient safety and outcomes.

This opportunity to further improve the quality of care it provides is at the heart of the organisation’s decision to adopt TrakCare explained William Edwards, NHS Fife's general manager for eHealth: "TrakCare is being adopted by NHS Fife as part of our programme to converge with other NHS boards, and we will be able to benefit from the experience of other boards as we progress towards the delivery of electronic patient records. In time it will also allow us to adopt common processes and work to standards agreed across Scotland."

NHS Fife will be the twelfth Scottish health board to adopt InterSystems TrakCare with around 92% of Scotland's population soon to be covered by the programme.

This implementation will enable NHS Fife to deliver against its strategic objective to establish an electronic medical records system, with the aim of enhancing care and outcomes, improving efficiency and supporting the Scottish government’s vision to create greater convergence across health boards in Scotland, as laid out in its national eHealth Strategy.

NHS Fife expects that by working collaboratively with other health partners, it will benefit from the collective experience using TrakCare to help improve the quality of healthcare, both locally and nationally.

Mark Palmer, country manager, UK, InterSystems, commented: "The basis of high-quality care is ensuring that essential patient information is accessible to all who need it, when they need it. The decision by NHS Fife to use TrakCare is testament to the value and benefits the system can deliver, as demonstrated through the other boards now using it. Our objective is to help NHS Fife achieve its goal of delivering the highest quality of patient care.

"We have designed the system to put clinicians in control, and patients at the centre. As a result of NHS Fife’s decision, even more people in Scotland will benefit from the seamless and secure exchange of information provided by TrakCare," he added.