BMJ Best Practice selected for EPR integration

Healthcare professionals will have easy access to the latest clinical information within the patient workflow.

BMJ’s clinical decision support tool BMJ Best Practice has been selected by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) for integration into their Servelec Rio Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system.

This integration will allow healthcare professionals to easily access the latest clinical information within the patient workflow - helping to improve outcomes.

Healthcare professionals at CNTW will be able to see a ‘BMJ Best Practice’ search bar at the top of their Rio EPR system, enabling them to quickly search BMJ Best Practice topics and clinical information in the same way they would use the search function on the BMJ Best Practice website or app. This is just one of the ways in which BMJ Best Practice can be integrated into healthcare systems.

BMJ is also actively collaborating with key initiatives such as SMART Health IT platform and SMART on FHIR, who are actively developing the future of decision support EPR integration.

Dr Jonathan Richardson, Chief Clinical Information Officer, CNTW said: “The electronic patient record (Rio) integration was a straightforward process for our informatics team. We are delighted to be able to give our staff easy access to the latest clinical information from BMJ Best Practice. By more closely integrating evidence-based knowledge resources into Rio, there is the potential to reduce information barriers, increase our uptake of evidence, and improve patient outcomes.”

Steve Wightman, Healthcare Managing Director at Servelec, adds: “With the BMJ Best Practice tool accessible directly from Rio, clinicians now have easy access to all the latest information on COVID-19, mental and physical health conditions – fully researched, evidence-based and peer-reviewed.

This has the potential to free up their time and support them in decision-making and the delivery of patient care. It’s a great example of how technology can make a real difference when it comes to achieving the best possible outcomes for patients.”

There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of integrating clinical decision support into electronic systems that healthcare professionals use. A study by Tao et al. showed that the clinical decision support systems (CDSS) integrated with BMJ Best Practice improved the accuracy of clinicians’ diagnoses.¹  Shorter confirmed diagnosis times and hospitalisation days were also found to be associated with CDSS implementation in retrospective real-world studies. 

Louise Crowe, Director of Knowledge, BMJ, said: “Healthcare professionals need quick and easy access to the latest clinical information when making diagnosis and treatment decisions, and this is what BMJ Best Practice provides. We are excited to be collaborating with CNTW to support NHS staff and patients at the point of care, and would like to replicate this EPR integration success with other trusts in the UK.”

All NHS staff and learners in England can use BMJ Best Practice for free, funded by Health Education England (HEE). BMJ and HEE would like to encourage other NHS Trusts to come forward for EPR integration by contacting support@bmj.com

1. Tao L, Zhang C, Zeng L, Zhu S, Li N, Li W, Zhang H, Zhao Y, Zhan S, Ji H
Accuracy and Effects of Clinical Decision Support Systems Integrated With BMJ Best Practice–Aided Diagnosis: Interrupted Time Series Study
JMIR Med Inform 2020;8(1):e16912