Customer stories
Tailored training supports rapid system roll out across Herefordshire
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Herefordshire based federation Taurus Healthcare supports 20 general practices who utilise EMIS Web® in order to deliver better and more resilient services for their patients. The federation serves three functions for Herefordshire general practice: strategic representation, federated support for activities across PCNs and back office, plus the delivery of contracts that complement in-hours general practice.
Implementing Electronic Prescription Service
During the Coronavirus pandemic Herefordshire GPs, supported by Taurus Healthcare, have been operating primary care in a different way, including increasing the number of telephone and video consultations undertaken, and asking patients to attend different surgeries to their usual. As such, the federation was an ideal candidate for the implementation of Electronic Prescription Service (EPS). With EPS, prescriptions can be sent electronically to any pharmacy without the need for a physical script. This functionality within EMIS Web eliminates the need for Herefordshire primary care patients to travel to their registered practice to collect their script, enabling a smoother patient experience.
With the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, the value of EPS became very apparent to Taurus Healthcare IT Project Manager, James Harley. Through the EPS solution, there was an opportunity for Herefordshire practices to dramatically reduce both practice footfall and use of paper scripts. In doing so his team could lessen the risk of viral transmission, thereby providing greater protection to both patients and healthcare professionals.
With rollout approval granted from NHS Digital, Taurus Healthcare was prioritised as a key candidate for EPS deployment. Working at pace, Michael Kidd from our training team established a close working relationship with James to ensure a seamless deployment across all sites.
It was essential up front to clearly establish the needs of the customer, so that we could ensure we were deploying the right product for their organisation. Once I talked to James, it was clear that EPS was exactly what they were looking for.
The two then worked together to lock in the implementation and training date for Taurus Healthcare. Given the varying understanding and availability of the wider clinical workforce, Michael determined that a one-on-one training session would be the best approach to get the team up and running quickly. This train the trainer session would equip James to train his colleagues as required.
Both James and Michael noted that great communication between the two was essential in ensuring go-live went to plan. Confirming all necessary configurations were in place, EPS was deployed within a matter of days, coinciding with a tailored training session via Microsoft Teams. Using dummy patients, Michael was able to clearly demonstrate the end to end process, and field James’ questions. The pair also established that a recording of the training session would be valuable, and in doing so James was able to take away a personalised resource to support his colleagues at Taurus.
Michael was fantastic. He really knew what he was talking about, and the training was seamless. From start to end, I think we were up and running with EPS within 2 weeks.
Through this approach to training and implementation the team at Taurus Healthcare were able to deploy EPS throughout their sites at speed, delivering improved services to their patients. Since the deployment, Taurus have seen greatly reduced footfall, as patients are now able to go straight to the pharmacy for their prescription - eliminating the need to attend the surgery. The introduction of this new service has been vital in during the COVID-19 pandemic in supporting social distancing measures. This service makes for a much more convenient experience for the patients whilst also freeing up time for surgery staff, the benefits of which will continue to be seen once the current pandemic subsides. As the first organisation outside of London to implement EPS for EMIS Web Clinical Services, Taurus are true examples of how digital solutions can support federated working across organisations.