What is encompass?
Encompass is a Health and Social Care Northern Ireland wide initiative that has introduced an electronic care record for every person in Northern Ireland. This is a single, digital record for each person. It records all the health and social care needs of a person for the whole of their life.
The health service 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.
Encompass gives patients and service users the ability to view and update their health information online wherever and whenever they like. It makes it easier for Health and Social Care staff to view important information about their patients and service users both in a clinical setting and while working in the community.
Having one record reduces the need for information to be stored across a lot of older systems. It also allows healthcare staff to see the right information at the right time. Staff are able to work more effectively because they don’t need a lot of paper forms and are able to spend more time with patients, clients, and services users. Encompass helps contribute positively to patient safety as the system helps prevent mistakes being made.
The benefits of encompass
Encompass allows patients or their carers to:
- View, make, and manage their appointments
- View test results
- View health and wellbeing information about them and their condition
- Manage medicines and prescriptions
- Choose how they want to communicate to health and social care staff
- Contact health and care professionals directly
- Provide information before going to appointments, allowing for more time with care professionals
It will provide improved continuity of care for HSC patients, clients and service users.
- Those who deliver care will have secure access to real-time patient information, helping to reduce duplication of services and minimising the risk of errors
- Patients will not have to repeat information to different professionals providing care or have to repeat tests in different locations
- Patients will be able to provide relevant, up-to-date information to support the professionals looking after them to manage their condition better.
