The appointment management and electronic patient record (EPR) system, Tiara9, has successfully completed the e-Referrals (e-RS) / Choose & Book certification process, having run for more than 10 days without incident at its ‘First of Type’ site, Frimley Park Hospital.
The accreditation gives Any Qualified Provider (AQP) access to a new EPR solution which meets the criteria of enabling appointments to be booked directly by GPs using Choose & Book/e-Referral System.
Commenting on the experience of piloting live running with Choose & Book, Val Sharples, Head of Occupational Therapy Services at Frimley Park, explains: “The whole process has gone extremely smoothly: there is evidence of patients booking, cancelling and changing appointments without any fuss. As hoped, it’s made it quicker and easier for them to access our services.
“From our perspective, it has helped standardise the information that comes through from GPs for each referral and it also improves the information available to GPs, such as whether the patient takes up their appointments or further follow-up takes place.”
The Tiara9 system is used throughout the Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Dietetics, and Speech and Language teams at Frimley Park Hospital, and the accreditation of Tiara9 is expected to enable the services to take on more AQP contracts.
Val explains: “The driver for us in becoming the First of Type site was that our physiotherapy service has an AQP contract with Hampshire for musculoskeletal services – a requirement of which was for us to enable automated appointment referrals via Choose & Book. It’s likely that other services will now look to publish appointments for treatments such as hand therapy, hand splinting and neuro-rehabilitation.
“Having Choose & Book in place certainly opens up more possibilities in terms of referrals and, as the solution evolves into the new e-Referral System, we expect more functionality to follow.“
Tiara9 is developed by software provider, Ethitec, who has been working closely with HSCIC (Health and Social Care Information Centre) to achieve NHS Spine compliance. Ethitec’s Managing Director, Simon Taylor, commented: “We are delighted that Tiara9 has completed the process smoothly. Its accreditation now opens up an effective and affordable solution for AQPs to enable direct referrals from GPs, and we look forward to being able to offer more functionality as it develops into the new e-Referral System.”
Ethitec is one of the first independent software providers to complete the five stage e-RS/Choose & Book certification process. The NHS e-RS service is estimated to go live in November 2014, when it will replace the Choose & Book system currently in operation.
e-RS / Choose & Book roll-out is key to the vision of offering patients a choice of place, date and time for their first appointment, and of eliminating paper processes around the management of appointments and patient records.
Tiara9 is in use at around 20 NHS sites and has a proven track record as a paperless EPR system.
