Patient management systems are used to provide healthcare staff with information about patients and their medical history. The new system stores information electronically so that it is available to the health care staff whenever and wherever they need it. It will store a full record for patients attending hospital from referral or unscheduled admission through their inpatient and outpatient care and eventual discharge and allow the information to be shared securely across the staff providing patient care and with GPs, which will improve communication.

Dr Ross Cameron, Medical Director, who chaired the project board implementing the programme in NHS Borders said, "Our staff have worked very hard to put everything in place in time for the go live date. In total some 60 plus people have worked with us to deliver this on time. Each and every one has played an important role in making this possible."

"Local experts from within NHS Borders, predominantly IM&T but also clinical and support staff and operational services were drafted in to the programme. Staff from InterSystems who supplied the system, the consortium Boards and the Scottish Government eHealth directorate have also provided expert support and this assistance has been critical to the success of the programme. We are grateful to all these people for their hard work and support."

"This is a significant achievement for NHS Borders of which everyone involved can be proud of. The unexpected snow wasn’t factored in to our plans when we set the go live date. Staff struggled to get to work and home again but they still managed to hit the deadlines. All the hard work put in beforehand has paid off and patients and staff will now see the benefits."

The TrakCare project is supported by NHS Scotland. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "NHS Borders are the first to go live with this new patient management system that's capable of being implemented anywhere in Scotland. Until now health boards have had different systems in place, even within the same board. Ensuring boards are able to use the same system will make it easier for information to be shared securely when a patient is being treated by more than one health board.

"The new system benefits patients and staff by providing better management of bookings and appointments, faster treatment decisions, faster test results, better information sharing, and freeing up staff to carry out more direct patient care.

"With NHS Lothian already deploying a version of the same system and four other boards in Scotland working towards their own implementation, this represents a major advance towards a Scotland-wide patient management system with huge advantages to the delivery of patient care."

Kerry Stratton Global Healthcare Managing Director with InterSystems, the system provider, said "InterSystems is delighted that NHS Borders has successfully gone live on schedule with InterSystems TrakCare. This has been achieved just ten months after signing the contract. It is evidence of the appropriateness of TrakCare to Scotland's health information needs, and the partnership between the Consortium Health Boards, InterSystems, and the Scottish Government."

Mr.Stratton concluded, "We were grateful to win the national contract earlier this year, and Borders going live is a perfect start to the delivery phase for the rest of Scotland, based on a standardised model for software and process that embodies Scotland's eHealth strategy."

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About InterSystems
InterSystems Corporation is the worldwide leader in software for connected healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 23 countries, InterSystems provides advanced software technologies for breakthrough applications. InterSystems CACHÉ® is a high performance object database that makes applications faster and more scalable. InterSystems Ensemble® is a seamless platform for integration and the development of connectable applications. InterSystems HealthShare™ is a platform that enables the fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health information exchange. InterSystems DeepSee™ is software that makes it possible to embed real-time business intelligence capabilities in transactional applications. InterSystems TrakCare™ is a Web-based healthcare information system that rapidly delivers the benefits of an Electronic Patient Record. For more information, visit InterSystems.com.