The Queen's Nursing Institute
The Queen's Nursing Institute works with the public, nurses and decision-makers to make sure that good quality nursing is available at home for everyone when they need it.
In this section:
Why not enjoy a short visit or a long day out at a National Gardens Scheme garden and show your support for one of the QNI's major funders.
Supporting the Fund for Innovation and Leadership.
Visit our District Nursing 150 website, a celebration of the vibrant one hundred and fifty year history of District Nursing in the UK.
Patient Data
QUESTION: Our Homeless Healthcare Team uses the VISION system to electronically record patient information. Attempting to use this system to create nursing care plans for our patients is not straightforward as they have multiple complex health needs. We can either write the care plans out by hand and then scan them (this does not seem the best way to use electronic records) or find a sensible way to enter the data electronically so that the information is easy to retrieve (to evaluate patient care and for audit purposes). We have not yet discovered any easy way to do this as the system appears designed for GP consultations. Has anybody else encountered/solved this dilemma? Is the answer blindingly obvious? Any assistance gratefully received.
ANSWER: We use EMIS in our practice but I know a great deal about Vision (having used it for 10 of the past 15 years). We have a data collection template for homeless people that is based on READ codes that could easily be written in Vision. The template allows rapid data collection. It's far from perfect but a huge step up from nothing. Anything in general practice tends to be based on a medical model. This is a long standing issue that nurses have been battling with. Our data collection has improved immeasurably with a template.
