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Practices in Airedale PCT (*now amalgamated into Bradford and Airedale Teaching PCT) saw their data quality improve through the work of PRIMIS+ facilitator Julia Smith**.
 Julia reported that change management and action planning are vital yet challenging steps in the data quality improvement process. They help a practice to discover where they are now, where they would like to be, what is needed to get there, and how long it might take.
Julia produced data reports for each of her practices, following an initial assessment of data quality. She explained the benefits: "The use of the reports has undoubtedly improved patient care, with patients being called in for treatment, investigations or screening; being placed on disease registers and given calls where previously they may have been missed or slipped through the net."
Part of Julia's role was to offer training and support to Airedale practices in how to achieve the move from paper-based to electronic patient records. Read code training is also a constant requirement for Airedale, who have tackled this so far with full-day courses, of varying formats. Julia carried out IT skills analysis surveys alongside the baseline assessment, and this proved to be a useful tool for Airedale in identifying training needs and highlighting gaps in knowledge.
Julia identified the need for a specialist training session on Caldicott and confidentiality (covered in the PRIMIS+ training module on Information Governance). This looked at what Caldicott means, where it originated from, the role of the Caldicott Guardian and how it links with the Data Protection Act.
The focus of Julia's role shifted after the introduction of the new GMS contract, even though the emphasis stayed firmly with data quality. Practices needed a good understanding of the quality and outcomes framework of the new contract, and this was supplied by Julia through a newly-developed training module from PRIMIS+.
* Since this case study was first produced, Airedale PCT was amalgamated into Bradford and Airedale Teaching PCT, following the 2006 PCT restructuring.
** Julia left her post as facilitator and joined PRIMIS+ as a Learning Consultant in 2006. She left PRIMIS+ in early 2008. |
