Technology & Digital Health

We use a number of different technologies in the practice, all ultimately aimed at providing a better service to our patients. The various programmes or services do this in a range of ways, such as enabling timely communications with our patients, speeding up the clinician's workflow, helping to pick up early signs of cancer, or taking and summarising consultation notes automatically to free up more time for the clinician to spend with their patients.

EMISWeb

EMIS Web is our Electronic Health Record. Used by all Liverpool GP practices, and over 60% of GP practices nationwide this is where all of your health information is saved. Increasingly more and more additional third-party programmes integrate with and link in to EMIS, expanding the number of options and tools for clinicians.

EMIS Web

Blinx PACO

"PACO™ (Patient And Care Optimiser) was developed by the Blinx Healthcare™ team in Partnership with General Practice teams. Many of the teams we engaged with were struggling to meet patient demands for appointments, with restricted GP capacity, the increasing need for routine appointments to catch up post Covid and the time it took to identify those patients meant the surgeries were struggling to meet the needs of their patients."

Blinx will likely replace AccuRx in the coming months, as not only does it allow for the sending of SMS and email messages, but also integrates their Health Forms as a way of us gathering and saving information requested from patients, along with powerful searching to identify patients needing follow-up and long-term monitoring.

Blinx Healthcare - PACO for patients

AccuRx

Healthcare professionals use this communication software to contact their patients via SMS, email and the NHS App – all to give you better access to care. Some of the things it can do:

  • Allow your clinician and their adminstrative colleagues to send you messages via SMS or through the NHS App
  • Complete questionnaires from health professionals, to help collect info from you easily.
  • Reply to SMS messages from your caregiver to communicate quickly and conveniently.
  • Self-book your appointment, leaving booking calls behind.

You can read more about it on the AccuRx website.

Cinapsis

Cinapsis is a smart referrals programme used exclusively for the local teledermatology service. Cinapsis gives GPs rapid access to specialist advice and guidance through their smartphone and web browser.

Photos are captured and shared securely using our Cinapsis SmartReferrals smartphone app and are automatically saved into the patient’s record in EMIS Web. Advice and guidance requests are completed quickly with everything being recorded into the patient’s notes automatically.

Dermatology Consultants review the referrals and images usually within three working days, and can either book patients in directly for a rapid access review if required, arrange a routine appointment if the images are reassuring, or offer the GP advice on how to manage the condition in the community.

Cinapsis Teledermatology

ORCHA

At the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) we have been assessing health and care apps, and digital health products, since 2015. An assessment involves asking questions about a health or care app, or a digital health product, to see if it meets standards in five main domains.

An App Library is a place where you can find health or care apps and digital health products that can support you with your health and wellbeing. You can read detailed information about each app or digital health product, based on tests (assessments) carried out by ORCHA. You can browse the App Library and select one or more apps for yourself. An App Library makes it easier to make sure you are downloading, or viewing the website of, the right app you want to use. We make every effort to make sure the App Library is up to date. To ensure this, all apps need to be assessed by ORCHA and updated at least once a year.

ORCHA App library

C the Signs

"C the Signs is a cancer prediction system that can identify patients at risk of cancer at the earliest and most curable stage of the disease.

In under 30 seconds, C the Signs can rapidly identify which cancers a patient is at risk of and recommend the most appropriate test or specialist to diagnose their cancer.

Using the latest technology, research and evidence, C the Signs enables healthcare providers to give their patients the best chance of surviving cancer."

This has recently been deployed across all of our Network practices to not only help with the early detection of cancer, but also streamline the referral process and make sure that all referred patients are seen and followed up as needed.

C the signs

dictate.it

dictate.it is a cloud-based speech recognition programme that allows the clinician to speak, rather than type, their notes. This speeds up their note taking, letter writing and Task creation, saving them time throughout the day. It allows dictation straight in to any programme that accepts typing including the clinical Electronic Health Record, word processors and more. 

Home | Dictate-IT

Heidi

Heidi is newly adopted, but if the trial is successful it may replace dictate.it in future

"Heidi is an AI medical scribe platform that assists clinicians by automating the creation of clinical notes during patient visits. Heidi streamlines documentation by transcribing consultations, generating notes, and allowing you to edit your notes with AI. 

This helps clinicians save time, focus more on their patients, and handle documentation efficiently. The platform also features top-notch privacy and security measures to safeguard sensitive medical data.

How does Heidi work?

Heidi works by transcribing your consult and generating notes based on a template of your choice using AI. It’s basically magic!"

Download the Heidi patient explainer leaflet

Microsoft Teams

"Microsoft Teams is the ultimate messaging app for your organization—a workspace for real-time collaboration and communication, meetings, file and app sharing, and even the occasional emoji! All in one place, all in the open, all accessible to everyone." We use this to facilitate the smooth running of the practice, sharing SOPs, policies and more.