Wellbeing Software Improving Childhood Immunisation in the East of England
Wellbeing is working with Provide Child Health Information Service (CHIS) to improve inoculation figures in the East of England using an innovative clinical data management solution to create a seamless communication channel between Provide CHIS and GP practices in the East of England.
Provide CHIS manages approximately one million immunisation records. One of the principle duties for the organisation is the scheduling of vaccination appointments for GP practices across the region. In a bid to improve inoculation figures, they are also partly responsible for educating the local community on vaccine measures and inviting patients to attend clinics.
According to research from NHS Digital, the number of children in England getting vaccinated against potentially deadly diseases has dropped to a six-year-low. Take up has declined in nine out of twelve routine vaccination measures, meaning immunity against deadly or life-changing diseases such as tetanus, diphtheria and polio is falling.
In order to deliver the highest standard of care and improve childhood immunisation measures, Provide CHIS needed an intuitive and unbiased IT ecosystem that could automate data processing, regardless of the original source. Provide CHIS needed a more robust record keeping system to track child health immunisations, ultimately removing the burden on GP practices by omitting manual data input and improving vaccination figures by reducing data inaccuracies and erroneous entries.
Healthcare: Connected with Wellbeing Data Management Services
Provide CHIS uses the TPP SystmOne clinical system to store and share clinical immunisation records from corresponding GP practices. Where information was transferred within the same platform (SystmOne GP to SystmOne CHIS) there was a greater level of accuracy with data input and vaccination scheduling.
However, in instances where the GP practice was operating on an alternative platform (EMIS, Vision or Microtest) the data was unable to automatically synchronise. This meant that practices had to collate and send the latest immunisation details from these systems to Provide CHIS, who then manually re-input them into the child health system; a timely process that increased the risk of transposition errors and inaccurate data input.
Wellbeing Software’s automated primary care data extraction tool enables Provide CHIS to schedule and upload child health immunisation information from other GP clinical systems into TPP SystmOne. It removed previous barriers by creating an open channel of communication between siloed systems.
The immunisation data was provided on a weekly basis in a secure, reliable and efficient manner with datasets scheduled and delivered overnight to prevent practice disruption and reduce the burden on staff.
The benefits
Provide CHIS has realised several improvements as a result of introducing Wellbeing’s data management platform:
- 4% increase in the number of pre-school boosters
- 1% rise in primary school immunisations
- reduced waiting list for vaccines as a result of better scheduling
- greater certainty that GP practice and Provide CHIS records match due to the automated process
- saving of 455 Practice Nurse hours as a result of automating the data input process
The cost of the tool, which is covered by Provide CHIS and offered free to GP practices, is offset by greater efficiencies in the new automated processes and freeing up of valuable clinician and practice staff time.
Given the success of the programme to date, the tool is being promoted to all practices across the region so they can benefit from better seamless services and realise savings from joined-up systems.
Wellbeing software is keen to enable similar solutions for other health communities with a mixed economy of GP practice and child health systems that would benefit from a fully managed, automated and integrated service. If you are interested in finding out more information please contact a member of our team.
To view the full case study, click here.
