After more than two decades as a GP, Dr Gerry Morrow has ended up playing a leading role providing the latest information on Covid-19 and its impact on the vulnerable to colleagues in primary care. – care throughout the country.
Dr Morrow was a GP in Allendale until 2012, before becoming medical director of technology company Agilio – formerly known as Clarity Infomatics. Passionate about the impact that technology can have on primary care, he is – in that capacity – responsible for managing a significant database of the latest health knowledge.
Agilio has responsibility for important resources for GPs known as clinical knowledge summaries funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). It provides those working in primary care with the latest information about medical conditions, treatments and drugs and is regularly reviewed by experts.
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Unsurprisingly, during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is important – and Dr Morrow told ChronicleLive about the job and how he experienced the rapidly developing coronavirus crisis. He said: ” After working as a GP in Worcestershire, I moved to Allendale where I worked as a GP. Then, having been a full-time GP for 20 years, I decided I wanted to change tack. I thought it would be great it’s an idea to keep going while people are still saying good things about me!
When I joined, the company was called Clarity Infomatics. The task is in two parts: Some of it is the so-called quality improvement work, while the other part of the work takes care of the so-called summaries of clinical knowledge. They asked us to create and update 370 topics.
“What that means is the distillation of what primary care should be. About 22 or 23 years ago, it didn’t exist. There was no single source of guidance for primary care. . For example you have questions about what is the best medicine to take.”
As for Covid, he said that the apparent results for other diseases and the prescriptions that people can get are done to get the latest information that is important.
Dr Morrow said: “It’s not just about Covid, it’s also how it affects people who are taking medicines. They’re more at risk. We’re updating things sometimes every day. We’re getting rapid updates from at NICE and making sure everyone is fed.”
Dr Morrow is also a non-executive director of the North East Ambulance Service, where he chairs the technology committee. Participating in life-saving healthcare innovation is something she is passionate about.
“Working at Agilio, my day job is essentially looking at technology and the applications of that in primary care. My colleagues are involved in working on ways that benefit primary care,” said he. According to Dr Morrow, using digital tools to streamline “back office” functions in general practice is one way that technology has many time-saving benefits.
He said he expected the first use of AI to go beyond saving time and using the technology to automate some of the time-consuming jobs for GPs – something he acceptable, especially given the pressures of general practice.
Dr Morrow added: “When I started, if you asked how you run a practice, the answer was spreadsheets and lever arch files. in the medical landscape.
“There is a lot of talk about AI and ChatGPT. It comes after all our jobs!”
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