Electronic patient records haven’t had much good press lately. As smarthealthcare’s Patient From Hell notices, there seems to be a general consensus that the ‘Spine,’ which will hold patients’ basic information such as allergies at a national level, is ‘insecure, possibly illegal and crash-prone.’ But there’s less talk of the benefits will electronic patient records may bring, or of the issues with alternatives to the proposed system. It’s somewhat refreshing, therefore, to read Roz Foad’s recent defence of the system, and it’s potential:

In a couple of years … your local hospital will be able to securely pull up a summary of your patient record (after you have given consent, unless unconscious, when there is an override with audit trail) and know your background and all the information they need to treat you. This is already happening in pilot sites in the UK. They can fill in a template which will feed information back into the GP system.

…If you need access to care outside normal surgery hours, your surgery phone will direct you to an ‘out of hours’ service. The doctor there will be able to pull up details of your previous treatment to care for you safely, and feed back what they have done into the GP system, ready for your next appointment. This is already happening in parts of the country.

Your GP will be able to access your secondary care record details which the hospital has submitted to the Department of Health for payment, thus viewing your entire pathway through care. The second biggest GP system, In Practice Systems, has now signed a contract to exchange data with Emis Systems, so that 80% of the country will be able to use these facilities. Of the other two systems, one is in discussions with the big two, and the other has a different coding system, which has its own problems, but is now more open to co-operation.

On top of this your surgery can, if it wishes, offer you on line re-ordering of your prescriptions, booking your GP appointments, a way of sending messages to your GP, and a means of accessing your records from anywhere in the world.