Synanetics Case Study International Patient Summary

BACKGROUND

Supporting the International Patient Summary for the G7 countries

International Patient Summary (G7-IPS) supports the G7 commitment to deliver on the rights of patients to have access to their health information, and through the use of open and interoperable standards, for it to be available at the point of treatment or care.

At present, when a patient seeks care when they are abroad there is no consistent way for clinicians to access potentially vital clinical information – it often relies on the patient’s memory. A structured and safe IPS record, and related service infrastructure will enable patients to share a summary of their health and care information reliably with their clinicians and trusted care professionals no matter where they are.

HOW WE ARE INVOLVED

Working at pace with the Northern Care Alliance and the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record team we were asked by NHS X to create a minimum viable product. We reused open technology from Local Health and Care Record Exemplar programme to demonstrate a patient mediated exchange of an IPS which could act as a foundation for adoption in other G7 countries.

Within three months we delivered a mechanism for patients to request an IPS, for it to be generated from GP records and annotated by patients. Patients could then share their record through a QR code and grant approval for its use via a text message.

Clinicians could choose which language they want to view the IPS in, making it more accessible internationally.

CLIENT QUOTE

Working with their NHS partners, Synanetics provided a simple and elegant solution which was delivered in a very tight short time period. They worked alongside national partners NHS X, NHS Digital and NHS England to develop and Proof of Concept to which was shared with the G7 countries to stimulate discussion and debate as to how the IPS could be used.

John Farenden, Programme Director for Strategy, Discovery and Research in the Shared Care Records programme at NHS England

>> STRATEGY

>> ARCHITECTURE

>> IMPLEMENTATION

>> SUPPORT

TECHNICAL SUCCESSES

  • Demonstrated the assembly of a minimum dataset of information, consisting of patient demographics, allergies and intolerances, immunisations and vaccinations, current medication, health problems, About Me information
  • Used open standard and open source software to develop a componentised solution that can be recreated internationally
  • All available data conformed to the FHIR version 4 standard
  • GP Connect API implementation
  • Digital wallet integration
  • Delivered the G7-IPS minimum viable product
  • Signified how ‘unplanned or planned,
    cross-border care’ could be managed with consist minimal and non-exhaustive dataset
  • Adhered to GDPR

OUTCOMES

  • Supporting the UK to demonstrate the capability technical healthcare infrastructure on an international stage
  • Affirmed the value of an International Standard to support better patient care
  • Recommended improvements which promote patients to contribute to their own record
  • Commitment to working towards adopting a standardised minimum health dataset for patients’ health information
  • Establishing a model for the patient controlling access to their data which is being used for other sharing initiatives
  • Providing the basis for exploring the opportunity to share records between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The UK took on the role as chair and embraced the challenge of delivering a proof of concept for the IPS standard for G7 countries.