Cohort 4

Michael Connelly

  • Emergency Medicine Registrar
  • North Bristol NHS Trust
  • @mconnelly02
  • 2023

In my 12 months as a Topol Digital Fellow I will improve patient safety by developing faster and more reliable access to essential patient data by enhancing how different electronic health records systems are used to store and deliver key information.

My Topol fellowship problem / project:

Patients’ health records are becoming increasingly digitised. Every aspect of a patient’s care, from a routine GP appointment, Emergency Department assessment, hospital admission to hospital discharge is becoming recorded on digital systems. There are clear advantages to this including clarity, efficiency and local accessibility. However, each part of this journey often utilises a different system which commonly do not share information. This means that clinicians regularly do not have access to life saving patient details known by other providers within the NHS. An example of this key information is about known allergies. Medication is given regularly in care settings and is not without risk. Life threatening allergic reactions after drug administration can and do happen in the NHS every year. My Topol project will work on refining how key patient information, such as allergies, is recorded and communicated to staff by NHS digital systems. This will make our NHS safer by reducing drug reactions and more efficient by minimising clinician time spent searching different systems for essential patient information.

I am in the early years of my specialist registrar training in Emergency Medicine. I am currently working in Bristol across the acute provider trusts of North Bristol Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston. I trained at the University of Edinburgh before moving down to the South West to start my post graduate medical training.

Since medical school I have found it rewarding to work on projects that deliver positive outcomes beyond my own clinical practice. Initially this was through contributing to research projects in the department, ultimately leading to being a primary investigator on several occasions. This allowed me to help improve and refine the evidence base behind treatments we use every day. More recently working in increasingly busy Emergency Departments has demonstrated to me on numerous occasions that digital systems have become an essential component in how we work.

Moving between hospitals during my training has allowed me to see different implementations of digital systems and the large positive impact delivered when well done. This inspired me to apply for the Topol Fellowship and learn the skills to help develop these systems in future. When not working shifts in the emergency department I enjoy river trekking and spending time on my road bike racing up local climbs.