Case summary and standards review – LAS
PRSB has been commissioned by the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to review their electronic patient care record (ePCR) system against the PRSB Ambulance Handover to Emergency Care Standard.
The aim is to identify changes needed to support safe, consistent, and digital transfer of patient information from ambulance crews to emergency departments. This will help improve patient safety, continuity of care, and ensure hospitals have timely access to the information they need.
Background
The London Ambulance Service (LAS) is the world’s busiest ambulance service and the only Trust serving the whole of London and the nine million people who live there. They cover an area of 620 sq miles and have more than 8,000 people who work or volunteer for them – rising to 10,000 when including bank staff and students.
The main role of LAS is to respond to emergency 999 calls and provide medical care to patients across the capital, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Trust answers around two million 999 calls a year and the crews attend more than 3,000 emergencies a day.
LAS play a leading role in integrating access to emergency and urgent care in the capital and are striving to ensure patients receive the right response, in the right place, at the right time.
The PRSB’s Ambulance Handover to Emergency Care Standard defines the information that should be shared when the care of a patient is transferred from ambulance crews to the emergency department.
Application of the PRSB’s Ambulance Handover to Emergency Care Standard will improve patient safety, clinical effectiveness and patient experience. When implemented in ambulance and emergency care systems, standards for transfers of care will improve continuity of care as emergency departments will have the information they need available to them in a timely manner. Whichever ambulance service conveys the patient, there will be a consistent set of information available.
LAS have commissioned the PRSB to carry out a critical appraisal of their ePCR system against the PRSB standard:
Carry out a gap analysis of the LAS Cleric ePCR case system to explore the content of the handover file against the PRSB Ambulance Handover to Emergency Care standard.
Explore the information required by the acute hospital ED to support the transfer of care.
Explore how SNOMED codes could be configured in Cleric ePCR.
Explore how well the pre-loaded medications formulary maps to DM+D and SNOMED CT.
Identify the wider interoperability requirements for ambulance data.
Aims and objectives
LAS objectives
The focus of this project is to define the changes required to the LAS ePCR system to support the issue of a complete and standardised transfer of care file to support the handover of a patient from the ambulance service to the acute hospital emergency department. Ultimately LAS wish to optimise the end-to-end workflow including a move away from paper-based handover to the collection and transfer of structured digital data.
PRSB objectives
To define the changes required to the current version of the PRSB Ambulance Handover to Emergency Care Standard to ensure it supports the safe and effective transfer of care between the two organisations.
Scope
Work included in this project will focus on the requirements of the London Ambulance Service only, its incumbent ePCR supplier and a single acute hospital emergency department.
Whilst the Ambulance Data Set requirements are out of scope, the requirements of this statutory return will be considered throughout and any issues arising will be managed as required.