Manchester Royal Infirmary uses Medisec eDischarge to collect vital clinical information on stroke patients during hospital visits.

Manchester Royal Infirmary, part of Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Trust, is using Medisec eDischarge to collect vital clinical information on stroke patients during hospital visits, enabling GPs to provide better levels of ongoing care.

The system uses standardised electronic templates which gather comprehensive clinical information during hospital stays. It then sends the data electronically to GPs on the day of discharge.

The electronic discharge summary becomes a live document from the moment the patient is admitted to hospital. The information includes a detailed diagnosis of the type and severity of stroke, the results of all tests carried out during the admission, medication at the time of discharge, a description of the effects of the stroke in terms of disability, input from therapists, details of follow up arrangements and investigations and an overview of risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, dietary habits and general lifestyle.

Consultant Stroke Physician, Dr Ganesh Subramanian comments:
“Stroke patients tend to suffer from multiple health problems and complications, so healthcare professionals and GPs need as much detailed information about them as possible to offer the best quality of care. We’ve developed the most comprehensive template possible to make sure that GPs get the right information; the Medisec software then makes sure they get it in the right format and at the right time.”

The electronic notes are sent on discharge to the relevant GP via Medisec Net, which already delivers other clinical correspondence generated by the hospital to GPs using NHS Net.

“In the past, the immediate discharge summaries have been written in haste on multi-layered carbon paper and have frequently been illegible,”  adds Dr Helen Hosker, General Practitioner with Special Interest, Older People’s Service Development at Central Manchester PCT.

“The information they contained was very basic at best and virtually nothing or inaccurate at worst. The more detailed discharge notes which we get from the consultant often don’t arrive until weeks, and sometimes even months, after the patient has been discharged, and often it is a case of too little too late. The electronic template system provides all the information we need to enable us to provide high quality ongoing care for our patients. It also provides the details we need for the patient’s medical record and for our contract, which is used as a measure of the quality of care we provide for our patients.”

The system mandates hospital staff to fill in all the compulsory fields – the software will not allow users to progress with the discharge form unless all the boxes have been completed.

The Trust is now hoping to extend the successful trials to other departments, including cardiology, ophthalmics and diabetes.