A new era for Northern Ireland’s health service dawned on Thursday 9 November 2023 when the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust waved good bye to paper patient records and launched the major new electronic patient record – encompass.
It was an historic moment.
The health service here has partnered with the global leader Epic to build encompass, which is unique to Northern Ireland. Epic currently provides electronic records for over 300 million people within the UK and across the globe.
Implementing encompass, means our health and social care records will be digitised and can be accessed at the touch of a button. Information from various existing outdated IT systems that did not communicate effectively with each other have been brought together.
This will make our health service safer, more efficient and effective.
In due course, everyone across Northern Ireland will be able to install an app on their mobile device called ‘MyCare’ where they will be able to access their own patient records. This will be revolutionary.
Having one digital record means that information does not need to be stored in lots of different systems. It allows health care staff to see the right information, at the right time.
The time needed to access information will be reduced, the need for heavy paper records will be eliminated, and the duplication of orders and information with be greatly reduced.
encompass will be rolled out to other Trusts on a phased basis over the next 18-24 months. The Belfast Trust will follow the South Eastern Trust and it will then be implemented in the Northern, Western and Southern Trusts.
encompass will transform how health and social care is delivered throughout Northern Ireland.
CLICK HERE to read our encompass explained easy read document