Egress Group’s healthcare division has been appointed to take on the complex data migration challenges of the UK’s first nationwide implementation of a single integrated health and social care record.
Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland is set to be transformed with the introduction of a single integrated digital health and social care record.
The country is replacing a number of disparate, outdated, clinical systems with one Electronic Patient Record solution, a contract awarded to EPIC in 2020. The data migration aspects of the programme have been awarded to Egress Group.
Complex end-to-end data migration from numerous legacy systems across the country … into a single, integrated health & social care record, transforming care for 1.9m NI residents.
The ambitious project, called ‘encompass’, covers acute, mental health and social care services for Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million residents and aims to drastically improve outcomes through the modernisation and transformation of service provision and care delivery. The single integrated medical and social care record will be used across hospitals, allied health, home, elderly and child health, as well as social care services.
Egress is partnering with Health and Social Care Northern Ireland and EPIC on all data migration aspects of the programme, which involves a myriad of ageing systems in use across the five health trusts and the ambulance trust.
Speaking about the project as a whole, Gary Loughran, Director of encompass, said:
“Every citizen will have one health and social care record. Doctors, nurses, and social workers can see social information, such as job loss or lack of transportation, which can be barriers to a patient’s health. When a patient is discharged from hospital, information in the patient’s chart can be used to make recommendations to social services or home care. We will be able to provide better care as a team to help our citizens stay well.”
Dan West, Chief Information Officer at Department of Health, added:
“It will support work on things like waiting times; actions around Mental Health; reconfiguration and rebuilding of hospital services; the development of day case elective centres; and delivery of transformed cancer services. It will help to digitise some aspects of social care and it will support community engagement and co-design.”
Find out more about the HSCNI project here: encompass.