Wales appoints IHR providers

Adastra, Emis, iSoft and InPractice Systems have signed agreements to provide the technical software that will make the IHR available to doctors working out of hours. They will be able to view parts of the medical record held by a patient's GP. The situation previously was that when a local GP surgery was closed, during evenings and weekends, out of hours staff were unable to access medical information held by a patient's family doctor. The £4.7m IHR is a key part of Informing Healthcare, a Welsh Assembly Government programme to modernise the NHS. Initial trials of the IHR were completed in November 2007 when out of hours GP services in Gwent were given access to some 400,000 patient records held in 96 surgeries. In January 2009 health minister Edwina Hart approved the roll out of the IHR, initially to be shared between GP surgeries and local unscheduled care providers. Commenting to SmartHealthcare.com about the development of the IHR, the chief information officer for Wales and director of the NHS Wales Informatics Service, Gwyn Thomas, said: "Our focus has been on delivering tangible benefits for patients through small service improvement projects that allow us to adapt and learn from new ways of using or linking information." Patients will receive a leaflet telling them when the IHR will be available in their area. They will also have the option to opt out.