Integrating BMJ Best Practice into our EHR system
An interview with Mike Jones, Associate CCIO and CSO, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust
By Mike Jones, Associate Chief Clinical Information Officer and Clinical Safety Officer, CNTW
Oct 14, 2022
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) is one of the largest mental health and disability Trusts in England employing more than 7,000 staff, and serving a population of approximately 1.7 million.
As the first mental health Trust in England to implement an EHR system, CNTW is forward-thinking and regularly seeks partners for further innovation. One of these partners was BMJ who they collaborated with to integrate BMJ Best Practice with their EHR system, Rio.
In this interview, we speak to Mike Jones, the Associate Chief Clinical Information Officer about his experience.
By more closely integrating evidence-based knowledge resources into Rio, we have the potential to reduce information barriers, increase our uptake of evidence, and improve patient outcomes.
Mike Jones, Associate CCIO and CSO
What were the drivers to integrate BMJ Best Practice?
We decided to integrate BMJ Best Practice with our Rio EHR system because it provides quick access to accurate clinical information at the point of care.
Prior to this integration, healthcare professionals at CNTW would have to search for an answer to their clinical problem via the Trust Intranet, which can take much longer. Although that route remains available as an option for non-EHR users, the integration provides faster access to many.
By more closely integrating evidence-based knowledge resources into Rio, we have the potential to reduce information barriers, increase our uptake of evidence, and improve patient outcomes.
In total it took our Systems Redevelopment lead an hour to build, test and implement the widget!
Mike Jones, Associate CCIO and CSO
What kind of integration did you go for and why?
Healthcare professionals need to be able to access relevant BMJ Best Practice information while in a patient’s record in the EHR system. To support this, we decided to implement a search widget that allows healthcare professionals to search BMJ Best Practice within the ‘Summary’ tab.
From here, you can type any condition or symptom and click ‘Submit’. You will be taken directly to the relevant BMJ Best Practice results.
In total it took our Systems Redevelopment lead an hour to build, test, and implement the widget!
What were the challenges?
The idea to integrate the BMJ Best Practice search widget came at a time when resource was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The focus was therefore on business-critical work, reorganisation, and communication to manage the pandemic as successfully as possible, with a reduced workforce and, increasing demand. As everyone now knows, the endpoint of the pandemic was also a huge unknown for some considerable time.
What were the outcomes?
Following the introduction of the BMJ Best Practice search widget into the EHR, usage of the tool increased and has been sustained since. Further work is planned to look at how we can increase awareness of the search widget and further integrate with our EHR supplier to provide directly from each patient’s EHR page.
