Dorset data accreditation case study

Dorset 2006

PRIMIS+ is pleased to have been able to support facilitators and PCT staff, practices and assessors throughout their data accreditation preparations with a full range of training, resources, materials, analysis tools and queries sets.

PCTs have been putting their own stamp on the IM&T DES process by tailoring their approach to their specific demographic and geographic needs.

In this case study, Dorset PCT explains its unique experiences, situations and approaches to helping practices become accredited under Component Two of the Information Management and Technology Directed Enhanced Service (IM&T DES), so they can upload summary patient records to the Spine.

96% of the 60 practices in Dorset PCT’s area have signed up to undertake the IM&T DES; 10 of which have already been accredited for the full three years.

Sharon Prior, Primary Care Development Co-ordinator and her colleagues Rose Owens, Karen Piggin and Andy Duncan (all PRIMIS+ facilitators), have enabled this high proportion of practices to take part because they began work and information-giving on the DES straightaway.

Sharon explained that the four facilitators had been able to provide practices with a lot of support; each practice has received around twice as many facilitator, CHART and training visits as normal. Plus, practices have been actively supporting each other in the process; sharing information and resources and benefitting from ad hoc electronic newsletters from the facilitators.

Dorset is one of the early adopter PCTs in the Summary Care Record (SCR) pilot. Practices have sometimes felt confused between the two programmes, so Sharon and her colleagues have been working to clarify the differences, explain where they overlap and their shared aims.

Sharon explained why she felt so many Dorset practices were ready for data accreditation: “Dorset PCT actually started work two years ago on the IM&T DES, when it was first introduced”, she said. "We guessed the amount of work that PCT restructuring would involve and worked around this. Initially we began with sessions to raise awareness and to provide as much information as we could gather to help practices at that time. Practices appreciated this and became very positive about the IM&T DES from the start."

As part of the changes to the GMS contract in April 2006, a Directed Enhanced Service (DES) was developed to facilitate the use of Information Management and Technology (IM&T), in supporting the delivery of the National Programme for IT.

A key objective of this DES is to support practices in achieving accredited data quality standards that are acceptable for sharing data in the NHS Care Records Service. Once practices have achieved accreditation, they will be able to upload patient summary records to the Spine.

The PRIMIS+ team of Clinical Advisers – all working GPs – put together a specification and query set which was designed to test the quality of patient data within general practice in relation to the needs of the IM&T DES, called the e-audit toolkit. This toolkit provides a snapshot of data recording in a practice, and can help IM&T DES assessors, as well as practices, in their preparation for the data accreditation assessment. The toolkit was developed for use with the MIQUEST interpreter found on all clinical systems and the PRIMIS+ CHART software, which displays data in a user-friendly format allowing in-depth analysis.

PRIMIS+ has produced a web-based comparative analysis tool, CHART Online, which is the only tool mandated by NHS Connecting for Health to support the IM&T DES data accreditation process. With CHART Online, data can be viewed in a variety of graphs, and practices can benchmark their progress against other practices within their PCT, Strategic Health Authority or nationally.

Dr Dai Evans, PRIMIS+ Clinical Director, who helped with the development of the e-audit toolkit, uses CHART Online within his own practice. "It’s an invaluable tool to mark a practice’s progress towards high data quality," he commented. "It’s particularly useful as the queries it contains relate to records that will be looked at during the data accreditation assessments - records which have not been looked at before under QOF or any other assessment."