Scottish National Users' Group (SNUG) Podcast

Facilitating information technology in Scottish general practices

In an interview with SNUG co-chairman Dr Neil Kelly, Louise McTaggart describes her experiences working with general practices in the West of Scotland over a number of years.  Louise started off as a practice manager in Glasgow in the 1990s and after working for a time as a trainer and IT facilitator for practices in Glasgow, she is now the National GP IT Re-deployment manager for the National Services Scotland GP IT Re-Provisioning team. She has a long involvement with the Scottish National Users Group and has garnered much knowledge about how best to help share ideas and tips to facilitate a variety of practices as they develop and use technology in a more effective way. As the challenge of helping practices move on to the next generation of IT systems grows closer, Louise will be involved with working with suppliers to carry out testing and assurance of the new systems before they are deployed to health boards.

Visit the SNUG website: https://www.snughealth.org.uk

or our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/scottishnationalusersgroup

What will health care be like in the future?

How will technologies like video consultations, artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) change the ways healthcare is delivered in the future? This episode features a conversation between Dr Andrew McElhinney, a GP and member of SNUG, with Dr Keith Grimes, who is also a GP and is currently the Clinical Innovation Director for Babylon Health (www.babylonhealth.com).

Keith discusses how after training in Scotland and working with electronic clinical communications implementation (ECCI) in the early 2000s, he later became involved with Babylon Health and is overseeing the safety aspects of their AI and patient triage development. Will we continue to need doctors in the future if technology keeps developing? Listen and see if you can decide.

There is also a description of how VR may be useful in some clinical settings, for pain relief and possibly in the future diagnosis of dementia. "If we have a technology that works very well and that patients control, it's surely important that we look into it more and find a way of delivering it..."

Search for VR doctors on Facebook or visit http://vrdoctors.net for more on clincial uses for VR. You can tweet Keith using @keithgrimes or visit his website www.drgrimes.co.uk.

Find out more about SNUG at our website Comments on this podcast are welcome on Twitter: https://twitter.com/snusersgroup or email alexandra.defranco@nhs.net

GP IT re-provisioning in Scotland

The re-procurement, renewal and modernisation of existing GP clinical systems in Scotland to the next generation of centrally hosted systems is called GP IT re-provisioning. The three suppliers who are on the Framework Contract Agreement are Vision, EMIS and Microtest, and they are currently developing their systems so they can be tested and validated against the Scottish specification and requirements.

What are the implications for Scottish GP practices? Dr Neil Kelly, co-chair of the Scottish National Users’ group (SNUG) speaks to Robert Hutton, who works for National Services Scotland as implementation manager for the GP IT re-provisioning project about current progress. Robert describes what practices will have to think about before they form into cohorts, which will be required before a new system can be chosen within a health board by mini-competition. Neil also speaks to Brian Ponton, a practice manager in North Surgery, Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, about what he understands about, and is expecting from the GP IT re-provisioning process.

SNUG members can get more information and see videos from our members' day about the latest re-provisioning progress at the SNUG website https://www.snughealth.org.uk

You can also find more information at the following links (please note - only available via NHS Net):

https://www.gpit.scot.nhs.uk/faqs/

https://www.gpit.scot.nhs.uk/news-events/

SNUG is keen to hear your comments and we will try and answer any queries about GP IT re-provisioning or any other question you think SNUG can help with.

You can leave comments or ask questions:

on Twitter: https://twitter.com/snusersgroup or email alexandra.defranco@nhs.net

What is SNUG?

This new series of podcasts is going to look at how technology supports health care in Scotland, and SNUG - the Scottish National Users group (https://www.snughealth.org.uk) - exists to try and ensure that people get the best healthcare through the best use of technology.

SNUG is a group of people who are involved in the delivery of health care through GP practices in Scotland. The SNUG Members' Day was held in May 2019 in Cumbernauld and a number of people gave short interviews about how SNUG provides a vital clinical voice to those who make decisions about what systems get used in general practice, and the day was also a great opportunity to see what current best practice is in GP IT and also to look at important new systems on display. Drs Bill Martin, Lucy Munro and Sean Kennedy, and Paul Hemsley describe how SNUG helps Scottish GP computer users.

We also hear from Sarah Everett, a practice nurse in Glasgow about how she designs templates to support better health care and can share these via the SNUG website.