EDM Healthcare Consulting has become the latest organisation to join the PRSB Standards Partnership Scheme.

Launched in 2018, EDM Healthcare Consulting provides consultancy solutions that highlight the importance of integrating valuable information captured in paper records with Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) and other record management systems in modern-day Trusts. The company, which works with NHS providers and system suppliers as customers, provides solutions to optimise the implementation of Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), where they may have failed to enhance record systems or streamline and improve the workflow of NHS Trusts within their initial delivery.

“At EDM Healthcare Consulting, we are passionate about futureproofing EDMS solutions to ensure that when EPRs and other record management systems are implemented, the existing EDMS can support interoperability and join-up with the new EPR,” explained Managing Partner and Lead Consultant, Harry Pettet.

“For this reason, our primary focus is on paper records. Paper records can contain decades’ worth of essential health information that needs to be retained as we move towards electronic record systems. We look at how we can move this unstructured data into structured data within an EDMS that can then integrate with EPRs, so that the value of these records is retained.”

Harry hopes that joining the Standards Partnership Scheme will enhance EDM Healthcare Consulting’s offer as PRSB can provide the context for what structured records should look like as the health and care system presses ahead toward interoperability between EDMS solutions and EPRs.

“Our philosophy is built around supporting the NHS as it transitions away from paper records. Joining PRSB’s Standards Partnership Scheme is part of our mission to do this while retaining the information that paper records contain. As a PRSB partner, we hope to use standards to capture paper-based information more consistently to allow this information to be more accessible to clinicians and other healthcare professionals that need it.”

“The standardisation of records is important for us in two ways. Firstly, by using standards, information can be transferred and made available to other systems, so that if someone travels from England to Scotland and requires treatment, their medical information is available for clinicians to use in Edinburgh in the same way it would be used in London.”

“Secondly, standards also help to get the data into the digital system in the first place. PRSB has looked at the physical layout of documents; for example, where a clinician’s signature should go on a medical form. I cannot overstate how helpful this is for the work of EDM Healthcare Consulting. This creates a consistent, repeatable layout within the record, which allows our customers to find the information fields they need quickly.”

PRSB CEO, Lorraine Foley, commented: “PRSB is delighted to welcome EDM Healthcare Consulting to the Standards Partnership Scheme, which we hope will help them deliver effective ways to capture and share vital information from patients’ paper records, so that knowledge can be applied to their care today. By working together, I’m confident our organisations can support the system’s broader goal of a single, joined-up record for better, safer care.”