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One Health and Care: Your local shared care record

October 27, 2023

Plans to bring together health and care records across the Black Country and West Birmingham – and beyond – are taking the next steps forward.

Since Unity was launched in November 2019, we have been able to see information from our local GPs such as current medications and diagnoses by looking in the Health Information Exchange (HIE) in Unity and via SystmOne.

Two separate sources of information are being linked to Unity and SystmOne, and the information available will provide professionals responsible for a patient’s direct care with a holistic view of a person’s care and treatment across all settings.

The aim is to improve patient outcomes and save staff and clinician time, by:

  • Enhancing collaborative working between individuals and organisations
  • Giving clinicians the information needed to make faster and more accurate decisions – reducing the need to order repeat tests and request records
  • Reducing the burden on patients to relay key information with each new contact

HIE now contains information from the West Midlands Shared Care Record (WMShCR). The WMShCR includes information from across the region from eight acute Trusts, five mental health Trusts, and 346 GP practices (including University Hospitals Birmingham, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s, and the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust.) Information coming into HIE includes radiology and blood results, hospital visits, allergies. Data that has come from the West Midlands SCR will be labelled WMShCR.

From early November we will have access to the One Health and Care Shared Care Record (OHC SCR), which will provide access to information from across the Black Country from a wide range of health and social care organisations. (GP records, allergies and hospital appointment data; future expansion includes blood results, radiology, clinical correspondence, care plans)

OHC SCR will be accessed by a link on the left hand menu in Unity, and a dedicated icon in SystmOne, and a user guide is attached.

The first time you access this you need to enter your name and role so that the system can link your profile to the shared care record.

For full details about the OHC ScR system, its benefits and how it will work, visit the dedicated One Health and Care webpage here.

Training materials including a short explanatory video can be found here.