Following a successful pilot with four ICSs, accuRx Record View has been rolled out nationally and is available for all NHS healthcare professionals through accuRx web (free of use). But what is Record View, and why is it important?
Record View is the only nationally available patient record sharing system that puts patient permission at the centre. It allows any NHS healthcare professional to request and instantly view a read-only summary of a patient's GP medical record (medical history, prescriptions and allergies) with the patient's explicit permission.
Who is it for?
It’s for any NHS healthcare professional, but is most useful for any secondary care staff who need instant access to a patient’s GP medical record to make clinical decisions. It saves considerable amounts of time, as staff don’t need to call or email a patient’s GP surgery to get patient information.
How does it work?
It works by a healthcare professional logging into accuRx web (free of use), searching for their patient with their NHS number and date of birth, and requesting permission from the patient. The patient must be present, i.e., in the room or on a phone / video consultation.
Once requested, the patient will receive a single-use 6-digit code in an SMS to the phone number listed on their GP record. The patient then shares the code with the healthcare professional to allow them to view the record summary.
This summary is accessible by the healthcare professional for 24 hours, after which permission would need to be sought from the patient again and a new code generated and shared.
What are the benefits?
Record View improves the efficiency of a patient’s progress through secondary care services, whilst also saving clinical time by removing the laborious process of healthcare professionals needing to call or email the patient’s GP surgery to wait to get vital patient information.
It’s also not restricted to patients from a specific locality, so wherever a patient is from, staff can request to view a summary of the medical record with the patient's permission. It can be used on any device and doesn’t require the user to be connected to their organisation’s electronic patient record.
Is it secure?
Absolutely. Record View was developed in accordance with the Caldicott principles and meets IG standards of national bodies. Patients must provide permission each time a healthcare professional requests to view their record via multi-factor authentication, and the record is only available for 24 hours.
Why is it needed?
Record sharing is fundamental to delivering effective and high quality care. If the contents of a patient's record can't be communicated quickly and efficiently, healthcare professionals can't provide the most effective care since they have no awareness of a patient's previous medical history.
There has been significant demand from healthcare professionals for an efficient way to view the information in a patient’s GP medical record when providing direct care to a patient.
What’s more, traditional ways of sharing records - like GPs printing off copies for home visits, clinicians requesting records over the phone with no identity verification, and sending parts of records by email - are unreliable, insecure and often time consuming.
Why are you doing this?
Record View is part of accuRx's broader mission to connect everyone involved in a patient's care, and will be important for delivering integrated care in the future - particularly with the dawn of ICSs.
Already, 60% of GPs have opted-in to have their patient records viewed by secondary care staff.
AccuRx is now calling on GPs to continue opting-in to have their patient's records viewed (with patient consent) and for secondary care staff to start using Record View through accuRx web for free, to create a much more connected NHS.
What do users say?
Mark (Clinical Psychologist) I found Record View really helpful and user friendly. I liked the way it displayed on my computer in a vertical list form which I could scroll through to look at information. This was also very clearly displayed without the information being overcrowded into certain boxes. I indeed found what I was hoping to find, which was incredibly helpful for my patient's care.
Geoff (Professor of Digital Health and Cancer Medicine): accuRx Record View does something simple really well, and it’s given me the additional information that I needed for my out of area patients.
Sue (Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner): Now that I’ve tried Record View once, I would be more confident about using it again. I was surprised how informative the GP notes were, and how easy it was to find information in the different sections.