In her latest blog, Consultant Connect Joint Managing Director, Kat James, celebrates our latest service development – e-RS Connect:
Since 2015, our mission has been simple: help patients get the right care, first time. We’ve done this by enabling GPs to directly speak with specialists over the phone for Advice & Guidance (A&G). In over 70% of these cases, patients could be cared for within their local community, avoiding unnecessary hospital visits.
A decade later, we’ve supported over five million A&G cases through calls, instant messages, and photo sharing. But what I’m most proud of isn’t just the numbers; it’s the culture of A&G that has grown alongside them in the areas that we work with, whether clinicians choose to use phone calls, instant messaging, e-RS, or other methods or any other way of closer working between primary and secondary care.
From the start, we’ve focused on enhancing existing tools, not replacing them. For A&G and triage, that means e-RS: the backbone of NHSE’s referrals. In partnership with NHS Digital and University Hospitals of Dorset (special thanks to Mark Mould and his team), we’ve spent months refining e-RS to make it even more effective for clinicians.
I’m thrilled to announce that e-RS Connect, our new e-RS module for A&G and referral management, is now live and available to all hospital clinicians in England. There’s no new system to learn and no complex rollout. e-RS Connect streamlines workflows within e-RS , the tool clinicians already use every day.
For areas facing clinical capacity pressures, e-RS Connect allows rapid ‘switch on’ of extra clinical support. Remote NHS consultants from our National Consultant Network can work directly within e-RS worklists to clear A&G and/or referral backlogs and review incoming queries and referrals.
This has been a true team effort, shaped by feedback from those who will use it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like a closer look or want your clinicians to try it out, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call us on 01865 951 207 or email info@consultantconnect.org.uk.
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