Hounslow Primary Care Trust is to give clinicians remote
access to a new clinical information system to improve the way that
healthcare practitioners store, maintain and update patient
records.
The Rio system will also remove the need for the notes made by
mobile health workers to be copied into clinical information
systems by back-office staff.
Child-health workers at the West London NHS trust will be the
first to access electronic patient records using laptops equipped
with 3G cards.
Some 100 practitioners will use the system from late November. A
further 500 practitioners, such as therapists, health visitors,
school nurses and district nurses, will be given remote access to
the Rio system over the next 12 months.
IT managers at Hounslow Primary Care Trust have worked with the
heads of clinical services to identify how practitioners and other
trust workers will benefit from remote access to records. Among
other advantages, it is expected that remote access will improve
patient care in the field and reduce back-office updating of
patient records.
Trust IT manager Graeme Hollocks said, "Remote working had
originally been requested by our executive team but the cost could
not be justified. However, with Rio in the pipeline, the deployment
and investment required for a remote working policy was
justified."
Rio replaces Hounslow's previous clinical information system,
which Hollocks said was not used very well.
Systems integrator Scalable Networks will provide the mobile
access to Rio and other applications, such as the Microsoft Office
suite.
With security a priority, access to the system will incorporate
two-factor authentication technology, with practitioners having to
enter their network log-in followed by a second log-in supplied by
a one-time password generating token from supplier Vasco. Hounslow
will use this for all its remote users.
Hollocks said, "The technology is putting a screenshot on your
laptop. It is not putting any live data on your laptop."
The first 100 staff to go live with remote Rio will be equipped
with laptops costing £1,200 each. Including the 3G cards, it will
take the cost of the first implementation to £140,000.
The trust's IT budget met the cost of the mobile deployment, but
the Rio application was developed and supplied free of charge by
the NHS National Programme for IT.