Thousands of patients and clinicians benefiting from the Greater Manchester Care Record

The Greater Manchester Care Record, powered by Graphnet’s shared record solution, has become a major digital resource for the area with almost 11,000 frontline users accessing the record to support care for more than 108,000 patients each month.   Among other benefits, the record is saving hours of vital treatment time every week.

At the start of the pandemic, development and use of the GM Care Record was fast-tracked to support the city-region’s response and to build on borough-based care records to create a single joined-up care record for all of GM and its 2.8m citizens.  Rapid progress was made in weeks, rather than months, as part of the digital response plan and collaborative effort.

Guy Lucchi, digital innovation director at Health Innovation Manchester and the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “We’ve had remarkable success since we accelerated the development and deployment of the GM Care Record.  We’ve increased the number of patient records on the system and the number of frontline users accessing vital information to inform clinical decisions in a timely manner.

“Because the record is accessible at the point of care and patients aren’t having to repeat their medical history, the programme team has calculated the record is saving 15 minutes of vital treatment time per patient.”

The GM Care Record collates information held by different health and care organisations to ensure that GPs, doctors, nurses and care practitioners can see up to date medical records, care plans, medications and test results to inform the right care and treatment.

Guy added: “It’s enhancing the way we deliver care by enabling us to develop our understanding of our population and their health needs, so we can target resources and services and tackle some of the health challenges we face across the city region.”

Part of that work has included the rapid introduction of a Covid Oximetry @Home platform which records the health status, including pulse oximeter reading, for patients being supported on the virtual wards and incorporates an app for patients to input oximetry readings directly into their electronic record.  A population health tool is supporting the region’s care professionals to proactively target and enrol Covid-positive patients onto the programme.

Graphnet’s remote monitoring feature has been extended with the development of the MyMaternityCare app for blood pressure and glucose monitoring and an app and digital heart failure care plans to support the reduction of premature mortality from cardiovascular disease. 

The GM Care Record is a partnership between the GM Health and Social Care Partnership, the 10 GM localities, Health Innovation Manchester and Graphnet.

Brian Waters, chief executive of Graphnet, commented: “It’s been fantastic supporting Greater Manchester to establish the record as a major digital enabler for care across the region.  I’m delighted this partnership is driving forward at such pace and we are looking forward to working with our GM partners to take the care record from strength to strength.”

Earlier this year, the partner organisations celebrated the GM Care Record being named HealthTech Project of the Year at the Digital City Awards.  The awards were established to recognise and reward organisations, teams and individuals who are helping to build a better future through technology.

Clinical and system leaders from Great Manchester recently shared their experiences of deploying the care record during a Digital Health webinar.  The well-attended session covered rapidly deploying the GM Care Record in response to the pandemic, the benefits they have released, and their future development plans for population health and more person-centred care.