October 21st, 2016 – In a recent blog article, SynApps has given more details on how to get to the the Integrated Digital Care Record (ICDR) via not just CDA and MESH but other ‘pieces of the jigsaw puzzle’. That’s because while we now have a format for producing some documents and a great way to send them, there is information that is falling between the gaps. Hospitals can generate a PDF for a discharge note, but then end up printing it off and posting it to the GP, which is not really the mission.

The heart of the matter is that not enough NHS stakeholders have understood the difference between coded and non-coded documents. Non-coded documents are less useful than coded, though a lot more useful than just paper, says the article. With coded documents, you can add in more information that health systems at the other end can pick up automatically.

Ideally all data formats (and there are lots) should be coded. In the meantime, your ICDR needs to work with the non-coded ones, as well as the coded ones, so that information is not falling in the gaps (think those posted discharge notes).

To read the full article, go here