Ascribe - informing care, improving health

ePEX received certification for Choose and Book compliancy from 'Connecting for Health' (previously known as the National Programme for IT - NPfIT) in January 2006.

ePEX is a modern integrated solution designed to support the inter-agency needs of the modern primary healthcare community including Community Nursing, PAMS, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Child Health, Elderly Services and Social Care. ePEX is used in over 35 UK Trusts as a single, resilient, reliable, flexible solution and will provide all the interoperability standards to meet ICRS requirements. ePEX supports the latest initiatives including eCPA, Single Assessment, Mental Health MDS and boasts a rich care planning / pathways model

Integrated Community, Mental Health and Child Health System

A complete Patient Care profile provides the information gathered from birth, throughout the patient's lifetime and on into old age (whatever the setting or the professional discipline) in a single integrated and longitudinal record. Clinicians can view historic and current patient care and can see who else is or has been involved in the patient’s care (subject to authorisation).

One Patient Index - Many Specialties

ePEX delivers a single database that supports all service areas and functions in the multidisciplinary care setting operating over wide area networks (including NHSnet) using a very thin client. Integrating with other systems, desktop and reporting products, ePEX supports the information requirements of Primary Care Trusts including the management of staff schedules and caseload

Integrated Care Pathways and Care Planning

A highly configurable, multi-disciplinary Care Planning function provides the means to create and monitor Care Pathways, Care Plans and the quality of care delivered to patients. ICP's link into user-defined assessment and review forms, and care plans link to problems and needs. ePEX supports the MHMDS, IMHER and eCPA.

ePEX is clinically focussed and centred on the use of Care Pathways and planning protocols. Its key purpose is to assist health care professionals to learn from Clinical experience, for the benefit of the patient, through the use of sophisticated care planning and assessment tools with integrated outcome management.

ePEX provides all those involved in the care of a patient with access to a complete set of patient notes and supports the Mental Health Act, care packages, core care plans, problems / need identification, assessments, medication, knowledge base links, and builds a complete history of delivered care (subject to the required security and confidentiality).

ePEX enables Trusts to analyse Clinical practice, which in turn facilitates the delivery of Health Improvement programmes, by highlighting effective care delivery, diagnosis and treatment patterns. This information can then be used to create better pathways, plans and intervention protocols within the system.

Child Health

The ePEX Child Health facilities are fully integrated with other elements of ePEX and allow for the recording of new birth notification, pre-school surveillance, immunisation and vaccination and school health examinations. The design is underpinned by the child health informatics consortium, (CHIC), specification for new child health systems and has been designed to include additional functionality such as relational registration which allows the child or children to be associated with other members of the family or care team or associated medical conditions.

Children can be registered at birth, monitored through pre-school surveillance, V & I and school health examination, whilst at the same time be seen by other health care professionals in other settings with access to records, resulting from care against the same record.

A complete history of care can thus be maintained within the system and dependent upon Trusts security protocols, can be accessed by all professionals involved in the child’s care ranging from HV, GP, audiologist, optomologist, DN, paediatrician, consultant psychiatrist, etc.

Extended Use and Availability

ePEX also provides its own web services which allow the Trust (in partnership with Protechnic Exeter) to develop bespoke web browser forms to extend the use and availability of the system. ePEX also supports Peripatetic staff using handheld devices.

The Mental Health & Child Health system of choice for LSPs

ePEX must be system of choice for LSPs submitting proposals under the National Programme for IT given its widespread use in all clusters and its track record, whether used as a fully integrated solution or as a specific solution for either Mental Health or Child Health. Protechnic Exeter is working with the NHS in the design of messages to facilitate the integration of Mental Health and the Single Assessment within the ICRS and the NHS spine.