What are the best ways to manage social prescribing referrals?

To ensure that our software (Access Elemental Social Prescribing), is always helping social prescribing within the NHS to be as successful and efficient as possible, we have established two-way integrations with the UK's leading clinical systems; EMIS Health, SystmOne and Vision.

These two-way integrations allow social prescribing referrals to be made in just 4 clicks, making it easier for clinicians to identify appropriate social prescribing initiatives much more quickly, refer patients fast and easily manage and monitor people's referral status and progress. These procedural improvements support improved well-being for patients and help alleviate pressure on NHS services.

This integration also helps GPs to stay involved and updated on each individual's social prescribing journey, including their progress and outcomes, through a suite of reports, without needing to hunt down the information over the phone, or via email.

This suite of easy to use reports also empowers GP surgeries to accurately measure the both utilisation, for example which referral sources, or activities are most common, alongside the impact these programmes are having, using using tools highlighted in the NHS PCN Social Prescribing Funding Guide, such as the ONS Wellbeing Scale, PAM and SWEMWBS.

This article will explain the importance of managing social prescribing referrals efficiently and the benefits of digital social prescribing. We will also highlight how our integration with EMIS health works, how our collaborative approach with EMIS has helped our customers run their social prescribing programmes more efficiently, and what we are working on next to further improve our two-way integration.

Who are EMIS Health?

 

EMIS Health's market leading technology supports clinicians and healthcare organisations across the healthcare landscape.

Working hard to improve patient outcomes, EMIS Web is a comprehensive, flexible tool that helps assist joined up integrated care. Not only supporting the day to day needs of healthcare teams, from appointment booking to patient consultations, but also improving efficiencies and maximising patient safety.

Why is working with EMIS Health important for social prescribing in the NHS?

Adopting a collaborative approach between Access Elemental Social Prescribing and EMIS Health, building from a shared set of principles and values, has meant that we are better able to support clinicians in improving the health and well-being of patients and alleviating pressure on the NHS through social prescribing.

The two way integration we have built:

• Enables GPs to use their existing, native systems to make and manage social prescribing referrals 
• Automatically updates patients' records across both systems using SNOMED codes
• Allows GPs to track individual health journeys and measure the impact of Social Prescribing using tools such as ONS Wellbeing Scale, PAM and SWEMWBS.
• GPs can see case notes if required and health impact scores within their clinical system, rather than having to go from the patient file into Elemental saving them time and increasing efficiency.

From the time we started developing the Access Elemental platform, we realised that integrations with clinical systems, such as EMIS, would allow us to open up the referral routes to ensure safe and assured digital referrals and support more joined up care.

Currently our two-way integration with EMIS Web works by pre-populating the referral form from the GP system to our social prescribing platform. Referrals can be completed in as little as 4 clicks and once the referral is on our digital platform it can be immediately accessed by a Social Prescribing Link Worker for another social prescribing journey to start.

Our integration allows our platform to send back specific SNOMED codes and unstructured or structured text at various points of a patient’s journey, to align the patient’s information and data across the two systems. This eliminates the additional admin of updating and aligning data in systems manually and prevents incorrect, out of date information being held in either system.

With social prescribing being increasingly used in the NHS, using SNOMED codes is crucial because they are used across different clinical systems as a universal reference code which everyone knows and understands. SNOMED codes being used in social prescribing allows all parties to understand where a patient is on their social prescribing journey. 

Some examples of SNOMED codes include:

• 871711000000103 – Social prescribing declined (here a referral has been sent to a Social Prescribing Link Worker but the patient has refused)

• 871731000000106 – Referral to a social prescribing service (this can be used when a referral comes in via a GP or when a Link Worker is supporting an individual and co-producing their social prescription

• 1084281000000109 – signposting to a social prescribing service

The use of SNOMED codes ensures all parties understand and are up to date on a patient’s progress through their social prescribing journey and the overall usage of social prescribing as an intervention, which can even help secure additional funding for social prescribing services in your community. 

One of our customers, Merton Connected, has found our two-way integration with EMIS Web very beneficial for patients and the operation of their services. They have reported that the integration has streamlined their service, improved their quality and continuity of care by preventing delays, and allowing referrals and SNOMED codes to seamlessly be sent across both systems. Merton Connected now have better operational efficiency through preventing referrals getting lost in long chain emails. Instead they can locate their information all in one place.

Our two-way integration with EMIS Web has allowed Merton Connected to concentrate on what’s important: supporting patients with preventative and non-clinical treatments to help improve their health and well-being. This strengthens relationships with different providers across the community to re-engage individuals and add social value back into their lives and their community.

What are the best ways to manage social prescribing  referrals?

Up until now interoperability in clinical systems and social prescribing systems has been very limited. Link Workers would be spending significant amounts of time re-keying the same information across several systems and spreadsheets.  

Digital social prescribing helps to streamline this workload. At Access Elemental Social Prescribing, one of our biggest benefits is that we are 100% interoperable with clinical systems through our two-way integration.

Referrals can be made in the clinical system and sent through to Elemental in a matter of 4 clicks. This allows Social Prescribers to be able to manage their time better and be able to spend more time supporting patients, raising more awareness of the importance of social prescribing, increase engagement and develop better partnerships with different organisations. This in turn, can help secure future funding across alternative streams to continue improving health and wellbeing across primary care further. In fact, nearly 50% of Link Workers that use our software have stated they have saved up to 2 hours a week on administrative tasks since they started using our software. 

Our two-way integration with EMIS offers assured pathways for all patients that use social prescribing. It prevents GP surgeries searching for specific advice needed such as debt or financial advice, and instead allows GP surgeries to be able to refer patients to services from a pre-approved directory of services on ourplatform provides.  

This way, by integrating both systems together referrals can then be recorded as well as the services that receive referrals, and the number of people going to each service. This allows social prescribing services to identify and recognise trends to support areas, or age groups and ensure they have enough capacity to cater for all those needs so no one is left with their needs unmet. 

At Access Elemental Social Prescribing we make it our priority to allow everyone to know and understand what social prescribing is and how to implement it right. Download our social prescribing guide today to learn from our customers the dos and don’ts of social prescribing to discover how to implement it right.

Alongside improving the actual process of referring people to social prescribing services, the integration also means that GPs can assess and demonstrate the uptake and impact of social prescribing services among their patients. 

What does the future of social prescribing have in store for Access Elemental and EMIS Health?

Our two-way integration with EMIS Web has been incredibly successful on our platform, however with social prescribing being used more widely than ever, we needed to update the features associated with our two-way integration. We wanted to provide more than what was currently available and we have been working hard to adapt our functionality to ensure we cater to customers’ needs as their social prescribing services continue to grow.

Our current functionality in our integration with EMIS Web is simple but effective. However, with social prescribing journeys becoming more complex we needed to ensure we had features that could accommodate that. The cost of living crisis also has a big part to play in this and we want to make sure we have the resources in place to be able to supply the resources needed for more complex social prescribing journeys.

We have been determining which new features would be best to add to our two-way integration and we are thrilled to announce this year these new features will be readily available for use, whether you’re a new or existing customer.

What are the new features being added to our two-way integration?

Our main purpose for these additional features were for both GP surgeries and social prescribing services to understand, track, and monitor every step of a patient’s social prescribing journey no matter how complex it is. Some of the new features include:

1. Sending back free text

Prior to this new feature, Social Prescribing Link Workers were able to send structured text and unstructured text at various trigger points of a patient’s social prescribing journey. Now with this new feature Link Workers can send any additional information across to a GP surgery to update a patient’s records fully so both Link Workers and GPs can track, monitor, and record a patient’s progress.

This also means any additional information can easily be sent across to GP surgeries regardless of the stage a patient is in within their journey. Prior to this SNOMED Codes and wellbeing Scores would be sent across at the start and end of a patient’s journey. This was very limiting, especially if a patient wished to access multiple interventions and wanted to achieve various goals.

Additional details can now be seamlessly sent back to GP systems including when a patient is signposted to a social prescribing service additional information of what interventions they have been signposted to, the name of the care coordinator for that intervention, and whether they needed any assistance or transport getting to and from the intervention.

Through being able to add an additional information, Social Prescribing Link Workers save time by preventing any information having to be inputted twice to ensure both systems have all the current information on a patient’s journey.

2. Sending back attachments

The next feature which we have developed is enabling users to send appropriate attachments back to GP surgeries’ systems. This could be anything from individual case notes, to a case summary report.

We believe this is going to be very useful, as instead of being restricted with what information can be sent over through structured text, summary reports can go into plenty of detail to explain how a patient’s journey with social prescribing has gone, if their social prescription was successful, whether their wellbeing scores improved, and much more.

Not only does this allow GPs to get the feedback they require to see how a patient has been impacted following a referral to a social prescribing service, it can provide great evidence for social prescribing to help secure funding in the future.

3. Additional SNOMED codes

A final additional feature we have been working on is the addition of more SNOMED codes to help record different and perhaps more complex events in social prescribing journeys. This new feature will automatically allow SNOMED codes to be added instead of a drop-down list where both parties are expected to know the code. Now all parties will be able to understand the different SNOMED codes in relation to social prescribing and can choose which codes get seamlessly sent across to each system.

These new codes cover the involvement of new or additional roles that play a part in social prescribing, more specific codes to explain the stages of a social prescribing journey, and codes associated with wellbeing scores and wellbeing tools, here are some examples:

Roles in social prescribing:

• 1484810000000101 – Seen by Care Coordinators
• 1484710000000103 Seen by Health and Wellbeing Coach
• 439411008 – Seen by Health Coach

Stages of a social prescribing journey:

• 1362721000000106 – Social prescribing case closed
• 1362931000000106 – Seen by a Social Prescribing Link Worker

Wellbeing tools and scores

• 714355000 – Assessment using Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale
• 718425001 – Assessment using Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale
• 7587110000000105 – Patient Health Questionnaire
• 713579005 – Assessment using Patient Activation Measure

These are just some of the additional SNOMED codes that will be available to use for Access Elemental Social Prescribing customers to send across to GP surgeries through our improved two-way integration.

We feel these additional codes are really important as social prescribing and the roles of practitioners can be called many different things across the UK and Ireland. Using different codes to label these roles are beneficial as it helps both parties keep a record of the different ways people can get involved in social prescribing and who they can be referred to.

The additional codes to represent the stages of a social prescribing journey is beneficial as it can help inform GP surgeries if additional or different interventions have been signposted and how successful each one has been. This is even more useful when it comes to SNOMED codes being used to track wellbeing scores and how they are being recorded. These additional SNOMED codes show how every journey is different and because of that a patient's outcomes may be measured differently depending on what their goals are.

We are delighted to be advancing our two-way integration with EMIS Web and cannot wait for users to start being able to use and benefit from these additional features. These new features will allow each step of a patient’s journey to be recorded and tracked across both GP surgeries and our platform like never before.

We love being able to help Primary Care Managers be successful in implementing and delivering social prescribing across their community and make it more sustainable in the future. The benefits our integration with clinical systems has on individuals, GP surgeries, and Primary Care Networks as a whole is huge. 

Contact us today for more information on our social prescribing software and let's start your social prescribing journey today.