Medicines interoperability

Information about patients’ medications, allergies, intolerances and prescriptions held by the NHS can be fragmented. Data is often recorded in different formats and using different vocabulary. This makes it difficult to share medicines information within and across health and care organisations.

Medicines Interoperability makes it possible for medical record information to be shared in a useable way between different IT systems wherever a patient receives care without the need to manually transcribe it.

This will give patients a better experience, improve safety and save time for health and care staff.

Shared Care Records, previously called Local Health and Care Records, are being introduced across England. These will allow people involved in your care to access your health and care records safely and securely so that they can provide better joined-up care as you move between different parts of the healthcare system.

Electronic transfer of medication orders

University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust implemented an electronic transfer process for medication orders between its electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) and pharmacy stock control system using FHIR standards. This transformation reduced manual transcription by 95%, streamlined dispensing, and improved patient safety by minimising errors. Pharmacy staff gained time for clinical tasks, and real-time medication tracking eliminated the need for separate prescription tracking software.

Immediate access to medicines information will improve patient safety by reducing errors and overprescribing:

Patients are often asked the same questions at different care settings they attend including, what medicines you take, what you take them for, how much you take, and whether you have any allergies.

This information is usually stored in their GP record, along with key information about any treatment they receive at other care services.  

In England, some of this information can be viewed by health and care staff when they need to see it in other care settings through Summary Care Records (SCR). But staff have to manually enter this information into their own IT systems when they need it to deliver care.   

Manually transferring this information between IT systems wastes millions of hours of staff time each year. And each time information is entered manually there is an opportunity for an error to occur.

To share information about medications, intolerances and allergies effectively, all services must speak the same language. One way of achieving this is to use a single terminology, which turns information into a shared language of codes that everyone understands and uses. 

These shared vocabularies for recording medicines information and data formats will lead to safer, more joined up patient care, reduced risks to patient safety and burden on staff and will lay the foundations for a single consolidated patient medication record.

There are some methods of transferring medicine information between systems that exist within the NHS. More information on these services can be found on their own webpages.

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) sends electronic prescriptions from prescribers to community pharmacies and appliance suppliers.

GP Connect allows authorised clinical staff to share and view GP practice clinical information and data between IT systems, quickly and efficiently. 

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