Meeting re Urgent Care Centre IT system
Friday 1 / 9 / 06

Present : 	Dr Jeremy Cohen
		Shane Scott
		Pam Lumsden

Venue:	Milton House Surgery

Time:		13.00 – 14.15

Had Initial discussions re requirement for IT system in UCC. 
Pam and Shane are relieved that the go-live date is no longer 1 October 2006 as this was felt to be unworkable.

At present distribution of IT systems in Dacorum Practices is
EMIS LV		13
EMIS PCS		2
VISION		3
MICROTEST		1

Cheapest system for PCT to implement is The Phoenix Partnership (“TPP”) System 1 as it is a LSP (local service provider) solution and comes out of a “connecting for health” budget. It is run from a central server so connection is possible from all PCs with a secure internet connection. No data is kept on the local PC and you only have access to the data required for your job. There are no maintenance costs with this system.

EMIS is the most expensive to install and ongoing maintenance costs are steep too – need to consider this if we are to fund it from future commissioning budget. 

Both systems will allow usual medical data input, read coding, audit, searches, drug database etc. (NB Pam mentioned about the funding of drugs – is who pays for the prescriptions issued? Do we need a prescribing budget? Do we claim back from PPA?)

I am keen to be able to keep the details sent to GPs legible, succinct and read codable. I also would like to send emails with the necessary details to the registered GP immediately the patient leaves the UCC. It will be easy to send details via email, but very difficult to actually lin k the read codes automatically into the patient notes (may be possible with TPP System 1 as central server base for notes etc)

I am going to investigate the TPP system further looking at Pathfinder Practice’s system - Nick Brown / Marie Anne Essams practice in South Oxhey (020 8421 6746)

I will meet with Pam and Shane again and when we have something more concrete will ask them to come to an exec meeting to discus further.