This decision support software, sponsored by Scottish Government Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics Division,  is now available for all primary care clinicians across NHS Tayside. Board-wide implementation is also planned for NHS Lothian, and NHS GGC, NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Dumfries and Galloway have initial pilots in progress. The University of Dundee has been commissioned to evaluate impact of this decision support software on prescribing practice.

PCEAepidural

We have recently analysed the results of a survey of users of the Scottish Palliative Care Guidelines toolkit.  Key findings from 61 respondents include:

patient-controlledepiduralanalgesia ppt

2.4 Non-urgent requests that require a deployment (i.e a new release of RDS) will normally be factored into the next scheduled release (currently end of Nov 2024 and end of Feb 2025) unless by special agreement with the RDS team.

To book a place, please contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot, providing your name, organisation, job role, and level of experience with RDS editing (none, a little, moderate, extensive.)

Following a test dose, you may wish to then give a further loading dose. The options for this are either to use an auto-bolus from the pump of 7mls or give a clinician bolus of e.g 10mls from the bag but this depends whether you have given your test dose via syringe or via the pump.

cadd-solis ambulatory infusion pumpkey

What is a PCAkey

NB: The auto bolus and PCEA dose are not delayed when you give a clinician bolus so they may get an additional bolus soon after.

CADDkeyeBay

2.2 Support requests that are outwith the warranty period of 12 weeks since the software was originally developed will not be automatically addressed by Tactuum. The RDS team will consider these requests for costed development work and will obtain estimate of effort and cost from Tactuum for priority issues.

The next programmed bolus is delayed from when you commence the protocol so the programme bolus will be given in 60minutes and the PCEA will be available in 20minutes..

To balance increasing demand with available capacity and financial resource, the RDS team and Tactuum are now working together to  implement closer management of support tickets. As a key part of this, we want to ensure clear, timely and consistent communication with yourselves as requesters.

patient-controlledepiduralanalgesia for labor

2.1 Issues confirmed by the RDS and Tactuum teams as meeting the critical/urgent and high priority criteria will continue to be prioritised and dealt with immediately.

10. Training sessions for new editors (also serve as refresher sessions for existing editors) will take place on the following dates:

Please remember to email ann.wales3@nhs.scot and his.decisionsupport@nhs.scot with any critical/urgent issues in addition to raising a support ticket.

2.3 Support tickets for technical issues that are not classified as bugs will not be automatically addressed by Tactuum. The definition of a bug is ‘a defect in the software that is at variance with documented user requirements.’  Issues that are not bugs will also be considered for costed development work.

EpiduralPCA pump

Users highlighted key areas for improvement in terms of navigation and search functionality. The survey was very valuable in enabling us to uncover the specific issues affecting the user experience. Many of these can be addressed through content management approaches. The issues identified with search results echo other user feedback, and we are costing improvements with a view to implementation in the next RDS deployment.

PCAkeynurse

The NES clinical knowledge pathway (CKP) publisher is now retired and the majority of pathways supported by this tool have been transferred to the RDS. Examples include:

We will be organising a webinar in a few weeks’ time to take you through the details of the current support processes and criteria.

Editors will now start seeing new messages come through in response to support ticket requests which reflect this tightening up and improvement of our processes.

Please note that we plan to move in the new year to a new system whereby requests all come to an RDS support portal in the first instance and are triaged from there to Tactuum when appropriate.

Ten bite-size (5 mins or less) video tutorials for RDS editors are now available in the “Resources for providers of RDS tools” section of the RDS.  These cover core functionality including Save and preview, content page and media management, password management and much more.

Many thanks to those of you who attended our recent webinar on the contingency arrangements being put in place to prevent future RDS outages as far as possible and minimise impact if they do occur.  Please contact ann.wales3@nhs.scot if you would like a copy of the slides from this session.

The next scheduled RDS deployment will take place at the end of November 2024.  We are reviewing all outstanding support tickets and feature requests along with estimates of effort and cost to determine which items will be included in this deployment.