GePmail is a secure electronic clinical messaging system which links NHS Direct sites and GP Out of Hours services with GP's surgeries. It is a two way system that also handles the administrative and operational communications required to fully integrate Out of Hours Services with Primary Care.
This is a program that has been developed by GPs for GPs and, as a result, is a highly efficient and effective communications medium that concentrates on patient care, confidentiality and the specific needs of GPs in relation to OOH cover.
Whilst OOH call handling systems have undergone dramatic changes in recent years, the actual transfer of clinical notes is generally still a somewhat laborious and haphazard process.
Doctor visits patient and writes clinical report.
Copy is given to patient with request that it is passed on to their GP but 40% never arrive.
Further copy supplied to OOH call centre.
Call centre posts/faxes to patient's own GP.
Practice files report with patient's notes.
The move away from personally delivered care to group cover, provided by co-operatives and the increasing use of deputising services, has made it ever more important that accurate and timely clinical reports are delivered to the patient's own General Practitioner.
Using the GePmail facility, the OOH records are automatically transferred from the call centre by encrypted electronic mail directly into the patient's practice and then into the practice's clinical system, thereby ensuring that the right information is in the right place at the right time, where it is fully retrievable, either on screen or in printed format.
In use, this system has proved to be fail-safe, secure, fast and thoroughly effective.
Fully integrated with current OOH arrangements.
Fully integrated with current NHS Direct arrangements.
Fully integrated with most call handling systems.
Intuitive and easy to use with little training required.
Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP and NT compatible.
Guarantees continuity of clinical care with OOH notes being transferred to the relevant practice the following day.
Automatic end to end receipt confirmation.
Provides the security of knowing that the data has been transferred.
Security and patient confidentiality is guaranteed.
Uses Data Encryption and Compression for privacy and speed.
Sophisticated search and reporting.
Reconcile activity against your OOH provider invoices.
Automatic prompts for claimable invoices.
Clinical records and messages are available stand-alone or can be exported into most practice clinical systems using EDI.
Two way data transfer enables practices to advise their OOH service provider and NHS Direct of patients with special needs.
Duty doctors availability and practice on-call instructions uploaded live from the practice to the control centre screens, no more misunderstood instructions.
Automatic upgrades are handled remotely with no disruption to service.
OOH contact details entered into your GP computer records without re-keying or faxing
GePmail enables a record of a patient's contact with NHS Direct and or your GP OOH service, providing they have given their consent, to be seamlessly delivered to that patient's GP's surgery and there after inserted automatically, without any re-keying of data, into that patient's electronic clinical record. Desktop to desktop communication between NHS Direct nurse advisers, GP OOH doctors and the patient's GP.
Feeding back to GP OOH services and NHS Direct
Having received a note of the contact between his patient and NHS Direct or the GP OOH service, the patient's registered GP, or one of his colleague's or a member of his staff, can use the system to send feedback up to the OOH service using the electronic equivalent of the NHS Direct blue form. For the first time OOH services and NHS Direct will be able to find out what happened to the patients they advised or treated.
Advising GP OOH and NHS Direct about patients with special needs
This part of the system can also be used by the practice to alert NHS Direct and GP OOH services about patients with special needs, such as the terminally ill, mentally ill or addicts. It means even if a practice is in a Co-op a GP can still elect to provide personal care to his patients.
Practice opening times, doctors availability and On Call Instructions
GePmail allows the practice to populate their GP OOH service and NHS Direct databases, again securely automatically and seamlessly with no re-keying of data, with schedules of their opening hours and out of hours contact details covering the entire 24 hour period. Your GP OOH service and NHS Direct Nurse advisors will thus always know when, where and how to contact the practice's duty doctor.
OOH booking of GP surgery appointments
In addition we have the ability for practices to send messages to NHS Direct detailing appointments availability at the practice. If implemented in NHS CAS this would allow NHS Direct nurse advisors to not only advise callers to see their GP but also actually book the appointment on line, during the call with the patient, removing the need for the patient to call up their surgery the next morning. This system leaves the GP in control of his appointments system.
All GePmail's electronic communications are protected using the Royal Mail's ViaCode encryption software product, the same system as will be used to secure the rollout of pathology test results, more than enough to satisfy professional concerns about security and confidentiality. This is a full PKI system but it is managed seamlessly within the GePmail system and is invisible to the end user.
By eliminating re-keying of data both at the call centre and at the practice GePmail reduces workloads. Using electronic data interchange between the various practice, GP OOH and NHS CAS databases GePmail abolishes transcription and other human errors caused when data is otherwise faxed or telephoned through.
Recognising that no practice is the same, GePmail is designed to be modular, fitting into virtually any practice IT and workflow configuration. GePmail has unrivalled flexibility and can be setup in virtually any practice IT environment. All the practice needs is an e-mail system, preferably on NHS net, preferably Microsoft Outlook 98 or above and a PC capable of running the system, anything bought in the last 2-3 years will suffice.
Practices can receive messages and print them stat as a standalone or go the whole hog and have totally paperless OOH links or any combination in-between.
Practices are receiving mountains of faxed data from their OOH services, most of which has no need to be exported to the patient's medical records. GePmail allows the practice to decide what parts of the OOH call record are exported to their clinical records. GePmail allows you to filter so you see only what you want to see.
Although the current OOH and NHS CAS systems cannot deliver Read coded records GePmail hard codes all its records, every entry uploaded to your practice computer is read coded. Code sets are defined by individual practices or can be tailored to local PCG or PCT requirements and are either 4 or 5 bit. We can even accommodate SNOMED.
GePmail interfaces with Adastra, Owl Software, NHS CAS, Torex's Premiere, System 6000 and System 5, In Practice Systems' Vision and most EMIS installations.
GePmail has been providing GP OOH links services to Deputising services since 1996 and has handled in excess of 300,000 messages. This is not vapourware.
GePmail will save your practice thousands of hours of staff time, they no longer have to handle bucket loads of faxes each Monday morning. For the average practice it takes 5 minutes to download a weekends messages and insert them into your electronic patient records. Practice managers can run monthly reports to reconcile against Co-op invoices. Your patients contacts with OOH services can be recalled or searched for in seconds. Using your practice network any workstation can access your OOH messages. Amongst our existing customers we have a 100% renewal rate.
Co-ops and Deputising services gain from not having to man telephone lines or fax machines to receive on call instructions or doctor availabilities, its all uploaded automatically. Transcription errors are minimised.
GePmail is provided as a service, unlimited usage with links to any number of OOH sites, office hours help and 24 hr on line help, free updates and upgrades all for less than 50p per GP per day. The Annual license includes all of the above and is currently charged at £375 for up to 2 GPs, £500 for up to 5 GPs and £750 for 5+ GPs. We are happy to discuss bulk arrangements with Co-ops, PCGs and PCTs.
GePmail is pleased to have been selected by a panel of NHS stakeholders to take part in the NHS Information Authority's Electronic Records Development and Implementation Program (ERDIP).
Delivering NHS and Government policy.
The system is compliant with eGIF, Information for Health, The NHS Security strategy, NHS Standards. It delivers the targets set out in the NHS plan, Dr Carsen's review and the DOH's document "NHS Direct a new gateway to healthcare 2001" and does so 3 years ahead of schedule, GePmail has delivered what these documents predict for 2004 in 2001.
The Project is also thoroughly consistent with the concept of standards, having worked with the Northumberland Health Action Zone in prototyping and reality checking the XML "Out of Practice" message.
For a more detailed description of the system and how it operates please refer to the help pages or contact us directly.
Patient calls NHS Direct or GP OOH service
Call is completed and signed off after triage or a consultation
Completed call record is passed to GePmail by the call centre software
GePmail validates the data, converts the call record to XML format and applies encryption.
GePmail sends the encrypted record to the GPs NHS net mailbox as an attachment to an e-mail.
The practice logs onto GePmail, GePmail collects the e-mails and decrypts them using the practices encryption certificate.
The records are displayed in our messages log.
Records can be viewed on any workstation on the practice network, printed in full or printed as part of an overnight summary or any combination of these.
The record is matched with your registered patients.
When the patient has been found the OOH record can be exported electronically into the patients EPR with as few as two mouse clicks.
The exported OOH records are not added as attachments or documents or as images, they are entered into the GP system as if they had been entered during a consultation.
Exported records are all coded and what parts of the OOH record are exported is determined by the practice.