If you hold a managerial role (eg. Practice manager) at a GP practice in England then you can access the Practice Index eLearning HUB free of charge and begin our custom made development courses, designed specifically for practice management. There are four courses to work through at your own pace at a time that suits you. EMIS Health, formerly known as Egton Medical Information Systems, supplies electronic patient record systems and software used in primary care in England. The company is based in Leeds. It claims that more than half of GP practices across the UK use EMIS software.
GP practices in Wales are being given the chance to reconsider their choice of new IT system after it emerged that the version of Vision offered to GPs at a series of roadshows will not be ready in time for the switch. In a letter to GPs, the Welsh BMA GP Committee said they ‘shared the anger and frustration of the profession at this development’.
Practices in Wales had to. GP leaders warned that dropping EMIS – which was used by half the practices in Wales - would cause ‘significant disruption’. A majority of practices had opted for Vision 3 but have now been told that the upgrade will not be ready until November 2019, months after the January 2019 date for installing new systems. GPC Wales told GPs that because the Vision system already in use meets specifications it is not a ‘legally viable’ option to delay or halt the process. Instead practices who have chosen Vision have been given the option to reconsider. In the letter to GPs explaining the extension to the decision process, Wales GPC chair Dr Charlotte Jones said: ‘It is in our view entirely unacceptable that a company should present a system in a competitive process when practices would have to make a selection for the next five years where it clearly ought to have known that it was not going to be available to practices when promised.
She added: ‘GPC Wales has raised a number of issues regarding the whole procurement process and we remain committed to lobbying for a comprehensive package of support to be available to practices during the migration process.’ Dr Steve Davies, chair of Bro Taf LMC said the practices who would be most affected were those who currently have EMIS, were forced to change systems and had opted for Vision 3. ‘Those who opted for Vision instead of Microtest will be in the unenviable position of migrating from Emis to Vision now, then having further disruption when the new Vision system is available.’ A statement from Vision said they were delaying the release in Wales by ten months to ‘ensure the new software has a sophisticated feature set that GP practices can rely on to care for their patients’. ‘Vision has a long-standing commitment to general practice in Wales, and we are determined to provide primary care teams with the very best healthcare software and services on the market.’ The news comes as GP practices in England may also be forced to switch IT systems, as NHS Digital.
We are planning to upgrade thecomputer software we use to manage our appointments and patient records. This will happen on 21st November 2012. Why are we upgrading? Our current software (EMIS LV) has served us well over the years, but it is over 20 years old and is no longer being developed.
The system we are upgrading to (EMIS Web) is made by the same software developer and promises huge advantages for the practice and our patients. This is a very exciting development for the practice and we are sure that you will also come to see the advantages over the years to come.
How will the upgrade affect patients? During the upgrade process there will be slight disruptions for patients. We plan to minimise these as much as possible. Monday 19th - Monday 26th November 2012 The online services (Patient Access) have to be closed down and new links made to the new software. For 1 week, patients will be unable to order prescriptions or maintain appointments online The software we use to request blood tests, xrays and other tests also needs to be reconfigured. For 1 week we will be unable to offer routine blood tests.
We will have a back up system for urgent requests (more information on the back up will be available nearer the time). Choose and book will also be unavailable this week.
This means that you will not be able to book your own hospital appointments. If you need referring, we will still offer you a choice of hospitals, but will need to type letters to send by internal post Wednesday 21st November We do not anticipate any problems with the upgrade. We will have no access to hospital letters for this one day only. It is likely that telephone calls will take longer than normal to process.
Every computer will need manually linking to the new software. This should be completed by mid morning for doctors computers For these reasons we will be offering an urgent service only on the day. All appointments will be same day appointments and we will only accept urgent visit requests.
We plan to use this page and our free email newsletters (have you considered subscribing?) to keep our patients up to date during the upgrade process.