OVERVIEW

Primary Care Networks are going to play a key role in the development of Primary Care. By now all GP practices should have registered with a PCN, which is typically a group of GP practices covering populations of 30–50,000 patients. For more information on PCNs and relevant timelines, please see these BMA Guidelines.

Ardens has a complete solution to assist your PCN with many of the NHS requirements to ensure that the implementation of your PCN is managed effectively and efficiently.

Following our recent merge with QMasters, Ardens now provide a clinical decision support and reporting tool for PCNs with both SystmOne & EMIS Web practices. We have also recently developed a new clinical reporting and contract management software product called Ardens Manager.

Ardens now provide a complete end-to-end solution that can benefit various roles within a PCN; can allow for accurate data analysis; and can enable actions to be performed and recorded by the PCN.

PCN ROLES

There are numerous roles within a Primary Care Network that need to be held. Ardens can support all of these roles, including assisting Clinical Directors to make strategic decisions based on up-to-date trustworthy data; enabling Pharmacists to deliver high quality prescribing services; allowing Physiotherapists deliver MSK services efficiently; supporting Social Prescribers with local resources; and helping Physician Associates and Paramedics deliver best practice effectively.

Clinical Director

The role of the Clinical Director within a PCN is to provide strategic and clinical leadership across primary and community health services. Ardens can provide Clinical Directors with the following benefits:

High-Quality Templates & Reports
By using templates and reports built by Ardens, Clinical Directors can be reassured that all practices within the PCN are following the same best practice clinical guidance and capturing the same high-quality data in a standardised format.

Trusted Large Scale Data Analysis
High-quality data is incredibly important for large scale data analysis. Our new reporting software, Ardens Manager, can assist Clinical Directors to easily spot trends, assign work and log audits to ensure that there is a clear record for the accountability of their PCN.

Supporting Local Programmes
All of the Ardens reports are completely customisable so they can adhere to any specific local requirements your PCN needs. Ardens Manager can also allow Clinical Directors to track income obtained and missed income to ensure the financial success of their PCN.

Clinical Pharmacist

As part of the Network DES, PCNs should also recruit a Clinical Pharmacist to assist with medicine optimisation, reviews and quality improvement across all practice members. Ardens can support pharmacists with the following:

Pharmacist Templates
The pharmacist template on Ardens allows the correct high-quality data to be collected from every consultation, enabling accurate data analysis. Ardens also includes pathways which enable patients to be managed at various different stages.

Formularies
Ardens’ formularies are based on national prescribing guidelines and can be localised for your area. They allow the clinician to easily follow first line treatments whilst also encouraging antibiotic stewardship. The PCN Clinical Pharmacist can be reassured that prescribing best practice occurs and savings are made as necessary.

Drug Monitoring & Safety Alerts
Our customisable reports ensure that patient safety is maximised by detecting any drug monitoring issues or safety alerts. Using Ardens Manager, PCNs can also benchmark reports, record reviews and ensure risks are mitigated by assigning work to the correct staff.

For further information on SystmOne, please see this Support Article

Advance Practice Physiotherapists

Despite an Advanced Practice Physiotherapist not being a requirement for the PCN until 2020/21, we already have all the resources ready for you:

MSK Templates
Our MSK templates can guide Advanced Practice Physiotherapists through consultations with quick access to referral criteria and other relevant support. PCNs can be reassured that all consultations are using correct up-to-date guidance enabling higher patient care and high-quality data to be collected. We can also set up your local referral forms so that you can provide a fully integrated and managed process.

Physiotherapy Reports
Amongst our 13,400 reports, we also have numerous physiotherapy reports which can assist the Advanced Practice Physiotherapist to target specific areas within a practice and PCN. Once uploaded to Ardens Manager, they can easily benchmark practices and identify trends on our intuitive dashboards.

Online Questionnaires
Ardens also has a variety of SystmOne Online Questionnaires available to form part of an eConsultation which allows remote consultations to take place.

For further information on the SystmOne questionnaires, please see this Support Article.

Physician Associates

Alike Advanced Practice Physiotherapists, Physician Associates are not a required role for a PCN until 2020/21. The majority of resources on Ardens can already however assist Physicians Associates, specifically the following:

Consultation Templates
The comprehensive range of templates available on both SystmOne and EMIS Web will enable Physician Associates to conduct quality consultations guiding them through assessment, examination, investigation, diagnosis and treatment of a patient.

Reports
Numerous reports exist on Ardens to help ensure that best practice is continuously delivered and that activity is auditable.

Paramedics

From 2021/22, PCNs need to recruit Advanced Paramedic Practitioners to act as the first point of call for patients with undiagnosed problems relating to minor injury, abdominal pains, headaches and chest pains. However, we have the following ready so your PCN can be ahead and future proofed:

Templates
Paramedics can use our various templates, for example Minor Injuries, to save time and ensure that they are using the correct up-to-date relevant guidance.

Care Plans and Letters
We have a variety of care plans and letters specifically aimed to assist with educating patients and ensure that they are connected with the right services.

Paramedic Reports
The Ardens reports on SystmOne and EMIS Web can be uploaded onto Ardens Manager to enable PCNs to report on services Paramedics provide ensuring every patient receives high-level care.

PCN DATA

Ardens’ complete end-to-end solution will assist your PCN with all it’s business intelligence needs, starting with data collection in practices and ending with large scale data analysis all based on up-to-date, accurate and trustworthy data.

Data Collection

The most important part of data analysis is collecting high-quality data. With over 5 years of experience, Ardens have developed an incredibly comprehensive suite of SystmOne and EMIS Web templates which enable practices to collect data they can trust.

Ardens templates also enable standardised best practice to be effectively and safely delivered across your PCN. The best practice resources are all based upon national or local guidelines and are integrated into the clinician’s workflow so that they can be followed effortlessly during a consultation.

Ardens can increase patient safety via its formularies with pre-set doses, drug monitoring alerts and screening templates. This reduces the chances of significant events occurring and thus avoiding the subsequent associated costs that this will have.

More information on:

Standardised Best Practice Templates
Local Contract Templates
Referral Forms

Data Reporting

Ardens has over 13,840 fully customisable reports. Practices will never have to worry about being behind on vaccination orders, CQRS or QOF data again; our support team will take care of this for you. As a PCN, you can be assured that all your practices are using the same up-to-date reports for trusted large scale-analysis.

Ardens also includes numerous best practice reports to identify any potential adverse events before they occur, for example identifying patients who are on the Combined Contraceptive Pill who have a UK MEC Score of 3 or 4, or identifying patients with a previous gastric ulcer who are on an NSAID without gastric protection.

More information on:

Safety Alerts
Performance Indicators
Recall Systems
Contract Reports

Data Visualisation

Effortlessly upload your reporting data onto Ardens Manager for real-time visualisation of PCN activity. On top of this, you can set targets and benchmark practices within your PCN to allow you to drive service performance; so much more than an ordinary Power BI tool.

More information on Service Management

PCN ACTIONS

Our new software, Ardens Manager, will allow your PCN to take your efficiencies to the next level by handling all your service and contract management on one platform; so much more than any other business intelligence tool.

Audit

Whether you are working at an individual practice, PCN or CCG level, Ardens Manager makes it incredibly simple to perform a quick audit of your current activity. Ardens Manager also allows you to record your audits in an easily accessible activity log. This will ensure that your audits and reviews are kept organised and can be used evidence for the activity and accountability of your PCN.

Assign Work

We are the only known clinical reporting suite that suggests work-to-do with predicted times to perform the specific activities, as well as allowing these activities to be assigned to specific team members. By assigning responsibility to your team, this will free up unnecessary administrative burdens and will ensure you can focus on what is important so that your PCN work gets done.

Contract Management

Ardens simplifies the locally commissioned contract processes for GP practices, PCNs and CCGs. Ardens includes a summary of all current local contracts with links to the full contract if needed. Ardens ensures that for each contract there is an appropriate data entry template for the GP practice to use with a ‘Star’ icon by any payment field. The reports on Ardens then can be used directly to accurately monitor activity for payment purposes.

Ardens Manager also allows organisations to draft, collaborate, sign and host service contracts in one space. GP Practices and PCNs will know exactly how much income they should be receiving and missing out on whilst commissions can heavily reduce the administrative burden of contract management.

Further Information

If you are an existing Ardens User and are interested in our new additional software, Ardens Manager, please complete our interest form.

If you are new to Ardens and would like to know about our package and request a 3-month free trial, please complete our initial contact form.

Please note that some of the above functions are currently under development for EMIS sites. Please contact [email protected] for more information.