PCT suspends TPP mobile urgent care

Tags: Database N3 PCTs Remote access

22 Feb 2010

The second primary care trust to deploy TPP’s urgent care solution has stopped using the mobile solution because of problems with poor reception.

NHS Northamptonshire told EHI Primary Care that it had reduced use of the mobile solution to testing by one or two GPs because poor reception in some areas prevented reliable connection. The same problem is also affecting use of TPP’s community module used by Northamptonshire community nurses working remotely.

The PCT said it was considering introducing roaming SIM cards and awaiting arrival of TPP’s briefcase solution as possible answers to the problem. A spokesperson for TPP said its briefcase solution was in pilot phase.

A spokesperson for NHS Northamptonshire told EHI Primary Care that as SystmOne is hosted in a Connecting for Health accredited data centre, it is possible to connect to this database using mobile devices with BT VPN N3 secure tokens and mobile devices that have smart card readers incorporated.

He added: “Unfortunately Northamptonshire does have several poor reception areas that prevent such devices reliably connecting. A primary care centre also has to enable mobile GP access and the administrative controls for this are under review. Therefore remote access has been reduced to one or two GPs who continue to test remote access (or mobile working).”

The spokesperson said poor reception areas were also affecting community nurses who were working remotely with the SystmOne community module.

He added: “TPP SystmOne is in a testing phase with a "briefcase solution" that would avoid poor reception and consideration is also being given to the use of roaming SIM cards that might improve reception and avoid poor coverage from a single provider.”

Problems with loss of connection are also covered in a report by out-of-hours expert Dr David Carson on use of TPP's out-of-hours solution by West Yorkshire Urgent Care Services - a report which the West Yorkshire PCTs and TPP have since said “did not enjoy consensus”.

Dr Carson’s report said SystmOne could only be used and updated when the laptop is connected to the server. It claimed that while sessions are supposed to retain information for 30 minutes when connection is lost this feature was “not reliable”.

Dr Carson’s report added: “A more frequent result of losing connection is the machine seems to freeze and the staff then restart the machine with loss of any data entered after the connection was lost.”

TPP told EHI Primary Care it did not want to comment beyond the PCT statement on Northamptonshire but stated that its briefcase solution was in a pilot, not testing, phase.

Fiona Barr

Reader's Comments

TPP Response

enquiries@tpp-uk.com

23 Feb 10 11:02

I'm surprised to read the article above stating that Northamptonshire PCT have "stopped using" the mobile solution for SystmOne Out of Hours. Northamptonshire PCT have confirmed that this simply is not true. There have been a few statements like this which have led to some confusion and incorrect conclusions about SystmOne. For example, Dr Carson’s report said that handshaking was not used within SystmOne, however, this functionality has been present in SystmOne for the past ten years. There have been a number of other instances like this where surprising and inaccurate claims were made about our software in recent reports and articles.

We have been working with West Yorkshire Urgent Care to help them get to the bottom of their issues. Two laptops were given to TPP for testing and these were found to have out of date software and drivers. These issues affected the strength and consistency of the signal. Additionally, there was a bug in the Dell software for XP users which affected the ability to reconnect automatically if signal was lost.

TPP have also tested alternatives for areas of the country where mobile data signal is poor/unavailable, such as 3G signal boosters, and as SystmOne is light on bandwidth, satellite phones are another option.

Testing has shown that a SystmOne client can cope with loss of connection for over 3 hours and still successfully save a patient record when the data connection is re-established. We would like to hear directly from any users experiencing issues connecting to SystmOne via mobile working. Please email me at enquiries@tpp-uk.com

Kevin Sanderson Senior Technical Lead, TPP

Not just TPP

23 Feb 10 11:02

I am afraid the same is true of all systems that use 3G/EDGE/GPRS (including Adastra ARemote), I mitigate the effects of this by having contracts with both Orange and Vodafone, and use the one that has the best reception in the locality.

Note from EHI Primary Care

23 Feb 10 13:02

The story followed comments made by GPs on the E-Health Insider Primary Care website claiming that Northants had stopped using the mobile solution.

However, the story itself is based on the PCT's comment, which states that because of problems with poor reception "remote access has been reduced to one or two GPs who continue to test remote access (or mobile working)." We have talked to TPP at every stage of our coverage of Yorkshire and Northants and we have reported the public comments they have been able to make.

Fiona Barr, editor, EHI Primary Care.

Fair comment

26 Feb 10 13:02

I feel that I should back EHI here. We have been contacted regularly by them and have unfortunately felt unable to comment on the stories as presented to us. As usual EHI have been dilligent in reporting the facts that they have been able to get hold of. Keep up the good work guys!

Frank Hester Co-founder TPP

I wouldn't be without SystmOne Mobile

mattcurtis@doctors.org.uk

28 Feb 10 20:02

I am a GP and work a regular shift for an out of hours service in West Yorkshire. I have used SystmOne Mobile since April 2009. Prior to its introduction the only patient record that I had when doing home visits was a scrawled written message relayed by mobile phone from the triage team. With SystmOne I am now able to refer to the housebound patient's entire GP record from their bedside. This is a phenomenal benefit and should not be taken for granted. Most of us can accept that modern technology is not 100% reliable. Just as I don't leave my mobile phone at home for fear of going to an area where reception is poor, I will not ditch my SystmOne laptop just in case the signal might be dropped. After using SystmOne mobile I challenge any sane minded GP working out of hours to revert to the old way of working.