PharmOutcomes Interoperability Accreditations

ITK3 FHIR document sender using MESH

PharmOutcomes has gained NHS Digital approval to act as an ITK3 FHIR document sender using MESH.

ITK is the NHS Interoperability Toolkit and specifies how messages from one organisation sending to another organisation are to be structured and populated.

ITK3 is shorthand for the toolkit definitions that relate to FHIR-based communications.

The Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH) is the main messaging service used across health and social care, allowing health and care organisations to communicate securely.

This mechanism enables clinical teams to share clinical information between care settings safely and securely.

Uses for our certification include:
  • Vaccination reporting
    • Seasonal Influenza Vaccination
    • Covid-19 Vaccination
  • Emergency Medication Supply

View Technical Conformance Certificate.

Personal Demographics Service

PharmOutcomes has gained NHS Digital approval to connect to the NHS Personal Demographics Service (PDS).

The PDS is the national electronic database of NHS patient details and holds information such as name, address, gender, date of birth and NHS number. It does not hold clinical data.

When a Clinical Service Provider, such as a pharmacist, sees a patient, they can enter basic patient details on PharmOutcomes. The system will do an automatic search of the PDS based on that information and retrieve the remaining data needed. Typically this means the search returns the NHS number and other demographic information not used as part of the search.

Every access to the PDS is logged and it is only possible to search on the basis of information already known by the Clinical Service Provider.

Adding the ability to search for matched records in the PDS make it quicker and easier for Clinical Service Providers to enter patient information into PharmOutcomes It also reduces the risk of data entry errors.

View Technical Conformance Certificate.

Summary Care Record 1-Click

PharmOutcomes has gained NHS Digital approval to connect to the NHS Summary Care Record 1-Click Service.

Summary Care Records (SCRs) are electronic patient records held centrally by the NHS. They are created from GP medical records and can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in the direct care of a patient.

This enables clinical teams to care for people properly and in-line with their wishes when they need care away from the GP surgery.

Summary care records generally hold:
  • patient name, address, date of birth and NHS number
  • GP practice details
  • current medication information
  • allergies and details of any previous bad reactions to medicines
  • additional information patients have asked to be included

Clinical Service Providers, such as pharmacists, can view a Summary Care Record by using a patient’s NHS number to access the record on their computer. The Clinical Service Provider needs an NHS smartcard with appropriate access permissions and every access is logged and recorded. SCR 1-Click provides read-only access directly from PharmOutcomes, bypassing the NHS Spine Portal.

View Technical Conformance Certificate.

Clinical Correspondence (Client and Host Application)

PharmOutcomes has gained NHS Digital approval to act as an ITK2 Client and Host Application for Clinical Correspondence using Secure Web Services.

ITK is the NHS Interoperability Toolkit and specifies how messages from one organisation sending to another organisation are to be structured and populated; ITK2 is shorthand for the toolkit definitions that relate to HL7v3-based Clinical Document Architecture.

This mechanism enables clinical teams to share clinical information between care settings safely and securely.

Uses for our Client and Host certification include:
  • NHS 111 clinical document reporting
  • Hospital discharge information
  • Transfer of care information
  • Uncoded information for use in uncommon settings

View Technical Conformance Certificate.

Cerner Health Information Exchange (HIE) Accreditation

Pinnacle Health has gained Cerner approval to connect to their Health Information Exchange hubs.

The NHS is promoting the development of a number of exemplar Local Health and Care Record systems (LHCREs). These enable the safe and secure sharing of an individual’s health and care information as they move between different parts of the NHS and social care.

The Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform from Cerner provides that cross-system visibility for a number of health and social care systems across the country. The accreditation allows platform users to access detailed patient data both in the local HIE repository and any external data source linked with the target HIE.

The clinical service provider must record the reason that they are accessing the HIE record; every access to the HIE is audited and logged whether successful or not.

The lawful basis for processing is modelled on the requirements for access to the NHS Summary Care Records. When a patient has been referred to the clinical service provider by a third-party or when the provider is responding to a request from the patient, access is granted on the lawful basis that the tasks are being carried out in the public interest, specifically under Article 6(1)(e) and Article 9(2)(h) of the General Data Protection Regulations.

View Technical Conformance Certificate.