Support for Clinical Practice
"GPs and community nurses, nurse specialists … can be following that patient’s pathway"
Prof. Sue Bale
Associate Nursing Director R&D Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust
The Map of Medicine is described as a "refresher" by experienced clinicians and as an invaluable knowledge resource for junior doctors, locum staff and multi-disciplinary teams.
Designed by clinicians from the outset, the distilled, visual flow of the Map of Medicine pathways provide quick access as either a reference source or to share with patients at the point of care.
Clinician driven interface
The Map of Medicine is a clinician driven interface - like a road atlas but with all the knowledge exposed. The clinician navigates the map and makes decisions from the options available. It is not a black box or an automated decision support tool.
The Map of Medicine can be used as a standalone application at the point of care. This can be done through a PC or on mobile devices.
Links to additional information sources are provided dynamically along with referral forms, personal annotations and feedback mechanisms.
Personal notes can be added by each clinician to reflect their own perspective on individual pathways which are shared with their local community through a managed feedback mechanism. The Map can be customised to reflect local practice and hence does not stifle innovation - for more information please click here.
Keeping safe
We are all aware of the information overload that any clinician experiences while attempting to keep up to date across the full scope of healthcare. This is putting enormous pressure on generalists, whether they are GPs or specialists doing on-call rotas in hospitals. In both cases clinicians need a source information that they can trust.
The Map is used as a comprehensive knowledge resource by specialists, GPs and other healthcare professionals including nurses. It also provides valuable support for locum or temporary staff and trainees.
Accessed using a web browser, the Map of Medicine can be used on any PC or laptop and has also been adapted for mobile devices.
Every page in the Map is updated at least once a year with more frequent updates where clinically indicated. For more details on the content development approach, please click here.
Clinician-mediated patient education
The Map offers a visual representation of clinical thought flow that can be easily shared with a patient during a consultation. For example, a doctor can share the most relevant pathway with a patient to help describe why tests and investigations are appropriate at this stage and what the next likely steps are.
The web has given patients easy access to a wide range of unvalidated medical information. Using the Map of Medicine to share accredited pathways can improve the quality of dialogue between clinician and patient and help patients make informed choices for their care.
Knowledge sharing
One of the original drivers for the Map was to make specialist knowledge available to generalist staff, so as to improve the quality of referrals from primary to secondary care. It was recognised that an important starting point is a shared clinical view of the process leading up to referral, as well as the criteria for referral, urgent referral or management in primary care.
The Map of Medicine is a useful tool to support consensus in local practice. It can be used as a starting point for multi-discplinary team discussion and then modified to incorporate local agreement.
Click here for more information on localisation.
