Two neighbouring GP practices in Tyne and Wear are using secure record sharing to cope with the intense resource pressures of swine flu.

Grange Road Medical Practice, which is managed by Gateshead Primary Care Trust, and Elvaston Road Surgery, both in Ryton, Gateshead, have agreed to share their patient medical records if the pandemic were to reach a critical stage – allowing patients to be treated at either practice.

Using the EMIS Web IT system, patient data can be streamed to a secure, central location, to be viewed by GPs from either practice, providing they have verbal consent from the patient. The two practices signed a data sharing agreement, and EMIS set the system up within days.

Sally Pern, practice manager for Grange Road Medical Practice said: “Having the contingency plan in place means we can be much more flexible, in the event of a further outbreak in the autumn. For example, if staff from one practice fall ill, patients could easily be diverted to the other surgery.

“Data sharing also gives us the option to segregate different groups of patients, to avoid contamination, and to collaborate on any future vaccination programmes.”

The practices worked with EMIS to agree the level of data that would be accessible to a patient’s non-regular GP.

Diane Leachman, practice manager at Elvaston Road Surgery, explained: “Swine flu complications arise when there are underlying medical problems, so we decided to make the full record available.”

The data sharing process has been successfully trialled, and is ready to go live at a moment’s notice.

Further information

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