OASIS Member News: e-SAP goes live in Tower Hamlets

["Sara Price" <sara.price@csw.co.uk>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  e-SAP goes live in Tower Hamlets

The deployment of e-SAP is a major milestone for the NHS Care Records
Service in London; it is the first system that allows staff from the NHS
and Social Services to share information on the individuals in their
care. 

The new solution, implemented by BT, is based on CSW's highly successful
Case Notes product.  CSW Case Notes provides a 'patient centric'
electronic health record supporting pan community communication across
both health and social care community of Tower Hamlets with a
shared-cared Single Assessment Process (SAP) solution for Older People.
The patient centric view provides all health and social care
professionals with a single, comprehensive view of a patient's care.
This visibility facilitates an accurate assessment of current needs and
existing care provision which in turn is able to prompt a more speedy
response to new patient problems.  

The Single Assessment Process (SAP), introduced in the Department of
Health's National Service Framework (NSF) for older people, aims to make
sure older people's care needs are assessed thoroughly and accurately,
but without procedures being needlessly duplicated by different
agencies. In Tower Hamlets, the new e-SAP solution is shared by 227
users from Tower Hamlets PCT, Tower Hamlets Social Services, Barts and
The London NHS Trust and East London and The City Mental Health Trust.
The SAP process promotes a multi-disciplinary care team approach,
spanning all those Health and Social Care organisations providing care
input to its clients. 

With this in mind, the e-SAP solution provides the integration that
binds such a distributed team together in an effective way not seen
before.  It provides a single source of person care information through
an easy-to-use portal front end and offers a conduit for communication
across organisational boundaries for referrals - supporting the
management of care that drives the Single Assessment care process.

Security and confidentiality are of paramount consideration when
building a shared care record solution and the stringent information
governance rules laid down by Connecting for Health (CfH) are embedded
in the new e-SAP application. Staff log-on using Smartcards that hold
information on the owner of the card.  Once a user logs in to the e-SAP
system, he or she is assigned a job 'role' based on their chosen access
point. Role-based access then restricts their view of that record to
display only what is relevant to their role. The e-SAP system is also
integrated with the NHS Care Record Service (NHS CRS) or Spine and meets
the required Connecting for Health (CfH) compliance standards for
connection.  

The benefits of using the national Patient Demographics Service (PDS)
for a single source of service user demographic information has also now
been realised in Tower Hamlets.  One of the most frustrating elements of
health and social care documentation is the amount of time wasted keying
in the same personal details multiple times.  The new e-SAP solution
includes a simple patient tracing facility which quickly yields the
required information, ensuring consistency across the care community and
avoids any re-keying of this basic information.

This Tower Hamlets e-SAP solution has been initially deployed as a
pilot.  Following the successful take-up by the first users, phase two
of e-SAP in Tower Hamlets will take place later this year. Other London
Communities have also been closely monitoring the rapid progress made by
the e-SAP solution in Tower Hamlets and are now keen to have the
solution deployed in their areas.

Polly Wicks, Tower Hamlets Social Services SAP Project Manager says: "We
are getting very positive responses from staff across the borough. The
people who used the old SAP process definitely find e-SAP an
improvement. Staff are also finding e-SAP easy to use, even when using
their core system as well."

Further Information on this story can be seen on the Connecting for
Health website at
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/london/News-and-Events/aug2006-new
s/towerhamlets-esap and
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/news/firstlondonesap

______________________________________________________________

For further information, please contact:
Sara Price, Marketing Manager, CSW Group Ltd, Email:
sara.price@csw.co.uk


About CSW Group Ltd
*******************
CSW is a leading provider of e-GIF compliant, XML-based interactive
products for e-Records management in the UK. Using our unique
combination of innovative technical skills, quality software engineering
practices and in-depth knowledge of health and social care we have
developed CSW Case Notes(tm). With secure patient journey management,
integrating clinical processes, knowledge management and in-depth
clinical functionality, CSW Case Notes(tm) enables seamless patient care
across the caring professions. 

CSW KMS(tm), shares the same technology platform as our clinical systems
to deliver XML-based content and knowledge management to customers such
as the Pharmaceutical Press, British Medical Journal Publishing Group,
BBC, United Nations FAO and Jaguar Cars. 

News and information are available at www.csw.co.uk