In order to do this it uses a Personal Health Record (PHR) which can be the Microsoft HealthVault platform, and users can log in with Microsoft credentials which can be re-used, or federated. The actual software front end is provided by GetReal Health through their Instant Personal Health Record (IPHR) content management system. This is currently hosted by UHS (Southampton) but in use in a number of NHS organizations through a programme with Prostate Cancer UK and Movember.
An interface between the providers, using their Integration Engine, allows them to push their results data etc into the PHR. There are a number of disease profiles currently catered for, a number of cancers (shortly to be a complete cancer module), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and some generic functionality such as results and documents.
A new piece of work in 2016 deals with the assessment for surgery process (pre-assessment). The system has demonstrated that patient facing services from the acute sector can help patients to manage their condition and stay away from hospital.
In prostate cancer there is a large saving in routine monitoring appointments. There is evidence that patient reported symptoms have resulted in timely intervention in the case of IBD. Generally, the system provides better quality services and allows clinicians to manage bigger caseloads.
Although this is a separate patient and clinician facing system, it communicates back with the main EPR system. When a user feels that a conversation is clinically relevant, an export of the exchange is placed into the clinical documents repository. This is one of the few truly connected PHRs for the secondary care sector currently in existence in the NHS.