Why is information sharing important?

Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems (EPaCCS) is a means to capture and share information electronically from people’s discussions about their care. The aim of this is to ensure that any professional involved in that person’s care has access to the most up to date information, including any changes to their preferences and wishes and personalised care plans.

The core record is usually kept by the General Practitioner in their electronic system and information sharing agreements put into place to allow relevant professionals involved in the person’s care to view and therefore be aware of the individual’s palliative and end of life personalised care plan.

This video shows how EPaCCS is important by allowing sharing of information across relevant services that individuals may access.

What support is there for professionals?

Using standard codes to record EPaCCS: Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) is a clinical vocabulary readable by computers. Used in electronic health records, SNOMED CT is the most comprehensive and precise terminology product.  SNOMED CT gives clinical IT systems a single shared language, which makes exchanging information between systems easier, safer and more accurate. It contains all the clinical terms needed for the whole NHS, from procedures and symptoms through to clinical measurements, diagnoses and medications.

Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has updated the SCCI 1580 standard for palliative and end of life care coordination to ensure that professionals and individuals have access to appropriate information to support decision making for those with palliative care needs and those who are approaching the end of their lives. The standard supports the Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning.

Share2Care e-Xchange

The Share2Care e-Xchange Programme aims to join up digital services across Cheshire and Merseyside, Lancashire and South Cumbria to improve communication between health and care organisations. Share2Care works by allowing the authorised health and care professionals that use it, to have controlled access to view certain types of patient information that is held by different health and care organisations located across the region. With e-Xchange being the viewing platform that Share2Care utilises within Cheshire and Merseyside to display this information.

What is the network doing to support professionals?

The Network supports localities by facilitating quarterly meetings with colleagues across Cheshire & Merseyside to work towards developing an EPaCCS system in place in all care settings.  

A webinar recorded by Dr Sinead Clarke, GP, informs us why EPaCCS is so important.

EPaCCS Webinar