Cheryl Mair – Practice Manager
Cheryl has been using CHIE via a Single Sign On (SSO) link her practice system since 2021 but already knew about the system from previous ICB/primary care communications and webinars held during locality team meetings.
As a practice manager, Cheryl uses CHIE at least once a week to carry out patient care focused tasks such as checking hospital correspondence. “If a patient is asking a query post hospital attendance and we haven’t received anything on our system, I check to see if it is in CHIE, e.g. a discharge summary”. She also finds it invaluable for looking at community notes to answer patient queries or to check referral follow up actions. “The Child Health Information section in CHIE is excellent. I use this frequently to keep our records up to date”
Does using CHIE save you time?
“Yes. If I have a query about a child immunisation or a community nursing activity, I no longer have to contact all the relevant parties to obtain the information. Access to CHIE gives me the information I need, saving time both here at the practice and for the other health care professionals involved in the patient’s care.”
What does the ability to access CHIE in your surgery mean for you and your colleagues?
“It means that we can view both hospital and community care data instantly, in one place helping to streamline the patient’s care pathway. If CHIE wasn’t available, we would have to spend a significant amount of time contacting various organisations to request information and updates on previously communications. For example, if we had been given a follow up action for a patient who had been seen at a local hospital, access to CHIE means that we can see the relevant information very quickly without having to wait for copies of letter to arrive.
What would you say to anyone who hasn’t started using CHIE?
“Give it a go! Access it at least once, if just to see how it could benefit your patients, your team, their workload and the efficiency of the service overall. If you work at a hospital, you can use CHIE to see primary care data. If you work in primary care, information on CHIE can help you deal with recall systems (such as housebound injections), reviewing immunisations and accessing hospital documents that may include investigations/observations results that the practice requires to deliver the best possible care to their patients.”