Wales practice reaps the benefits of cluster work with EMIS Web

Deborah Kalaji, Practice Manager at Canolfan Iechyd Amlwch, Wales, part of the Anglesey cluster, is a staunch EMIS Web® fan “It’s invaluable to share reports and templates with colleagues at other EMIS Web practices, rather than reinventing the wheel as new projects and reporting requirements are implemented.

“When I joined this practice 10 years ago they were due to change to EMIS Web, and I wasn’t looking forward to that system swap, but I immediately liked the flexibility it has. I love the concept and protocols area best of all. They help me to build prompts, and deliver quick steps to improve our team’s efficiency, which has increased our ability to be proactive.”

Concepts and protocols are decision making tools that enable the automation of decision-making processes. They can be used to identify certain characteristics in a patient's record and, based on the information found, automate actions or provide guidance to the clinician.

Deborah adds, “We’ve built so many in accordance with regional and seasonal campaigns, and one such example is during the flu season. If a patient is classed as needing the vaccine, an alert flags up with information on whether the patient usually declines or accepts, giving the clinician the opportunity to frame the proposal accordingly. We can make pop ups appear as a patient record is loaded, and tailor them to appear differently for different team members according to their role.”

It’s not just concepts and protocols that keeps Deborah and her practice engaged with the tools on hand with EMIS Web, the practice uses the reports function to claim accurately and on time for their enhanced services each month, “It’s very easy to use and by tailoring the output reports we can claim correctly and reduce the fear of mis-claims subsequently being identified by the Post Payment Verification team. The accuracy and peace of mind is so important.

“We also build our own templates, enabling clinicians to capture information consistently and accurately using the correct read codes which is so important when data is extracted for national reporting of activity. We can create templates as library templates that are then replicated in all our chronic disease templates, the obvious examples being the current Unhealthy Behaviours QI project focussing on smoking, weight, and alcohol.”

EMIS Web enables practices to design around local processes, ways of working and automated procedures. Reducing the risk of errors, ensuring consistency, and saving time. 

“We also use the visibility rules in the templates, so if for example a patient is having a diabetic review, but they also on a NOAC, which requires a review, the nurse can see this notification, undertake the dual review, saving the patient having to come back. Visibility rules help to make each patient contact as useful as possible, and reduce the need to bring them back, but equally not overwhelm our staff with prompts and massive templates.

“EMIS Web does everything I need as part of a cluster, standalone practice and to the benefit of our patients.”