CareCentric End of Life: Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems (EPACCs)
The CareCentric End of Life programme is developed specifically to provide a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of palliative and end of life care services. It can be used by health and social care providers working across the NHS and social services to co-ordinate care in the last year of a patient’s life. Clinicians, care staff, patients and their carers can jointly plan end of life care, with the security of knowing that up-to-date information, assessments and records are available to authorised users where and whenever they need them.
A single end of life care coordination system
CareCentric's End of Life system can be embedded in most existing systems, meaning that many health and social care users will be able to access the CareCentric end of life record directly from their own computer records. The system works using single sign-on and using patient context eg. a GP using EMIS Web, a hospital doctor using iPM or an out of hours clinician using Adastra, could all call the record directly from their own systems without having to sign on to a new system or re-select the patient.
This allows health communities to create an end of life register, it builds a care record for patients in their last year of life and makes it available in real time to authorised users across the care community. The electronic record is available to all approved staff when and where it is needed. Known data such as allergies and adverse drug reactions can be pulled through from local systems automatically and end-of-life specific details can be entered once and shared amongst all those involved in the care of that patient. By Improving communications between the patient and service providers, including in and out of hours services it makes the patient wishes clear and accessible to all, more patients die in their preferred place of care and there is less distress for patient and family.
EPACCs Key features
- GPs and other authorised users are able to register a patient and create an end of life record for that patient
- CareCentric fully interacts with primary care systems and will automatically pull through key clinical data such as demographics, current medications, allergies and adverse drug reactions from GP systems
- The system collects end of life data such as health and social care teams, carers, care plans, prognosis and preferred place of death
- Any changes and new information feed immediately through to the record. This gives all authorised users immediate access to up to date and complete records
- Ambulance staff are able to identify people with end of life plans prior to despatch
- CareCentric can send automated alerts to specified people and teams for key events
- Enables reporting and analysis on the people with end of life plans and on the effectiveness of their management
