Patients living with chronic kidney disease are benefiting from improved care – thanks to a new award-winning initiative that shares electronic records.

The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) electronic advice service means GPs can get specialist advice by linking up with St Luke’s Hospital consultant, Dr John Stoves.

And there are hopes the service will now be copied by other hospital and patient care trusts around the country.

The idea was awarded first prize at the 2011 British Journal of Renal Medicine Innovation Awards which delighted Dr Stoves, of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who was involved in setting up the new service.

He said: “We have demonstrated that record sharing allows timely, safe and effective reviews of patients with mild-to-moderate chronic kidney disease in the community.

“In addition to giving electronic advice to GP colleagues, the Bradford renal team is now better able to manage dialysis and kidney transplant patients by accessing primary care electronic patient records to facilitate medicines reconciliation and streamlining of shared care pathways such as anaemia management, hepatitis vaccination and coordination of palliative care services.”

He said the record sharing experience had been shared regionally and nationally and he hoped teams would now be encouraged to adopt that way of delivering care for patients.

Dr John Connolly, clinical lead for technology at NHS Bradford and Airedale, said he was encouraged that the Renal Medicine community had recognised the potential to improve the care of kidney disease patients by sharing records across organisational boundaries, allowing hospital-based specialists to provide expert advice to primary-care clinicians who would otherwise have to transfer the patient into hospital care."

  • Read the full story in Wednesday's T&A