DUTCH HOSPITAL EXPANDS ITS USE OF SECTRA'S SOLUTION

Dutch hospital Alrijne Zorggroep has signed an enterprise imaging contract with international medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company, Sectra.

The contract is an expansion of an existing agreement that aims to broaden the use of the imaging solutions currently used in radiology to include cardiology.

Through the initiative, Alrijne has the possibility to further expand its use of the solution to include all medical imaging across the enterprise. Consolidating image management across Alrijne Zorggroep will reduce IT complexity and enable cross-discipline collaboration around patients.

“We have used Sectra’s solution for many years in radiology. It’s an intuitive solution with high availability that helps our radiologists to efficiently deliver high-quality care. Sectra has proven to be a partner that listens to its customers and clearly wants to meet both current and future needs. This was important in our decision to move beyond radiology and make Sectra our enterprise imaging partner,” says Richard de Wit, infrastructure and automatisation manager at Alrijne Zorggroep. 

NHS DIGITAL LAUNCHES IMPROVED COLLECTION OF GP DATA

NHS Digital has introduced a new service which will more efficiently collect primary care datat and make it available for better planning of healthcare services and medical research.

Although NHS Digital has been collecting data from GPs for years, though its trusted General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), the system is now being replaced with their new General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) service.

This system is a broader general-purpose collection which aims to enable faster access to pseudonymised patient data for planners and research. The new improved data collection process is set to begin from 1 July.

UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS BIRMINGHAM WORKS WITH DRDOCTOR FOR OUTPATIENT CARE  

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS FT (UHB), has partnered up with appointment reminder service, DrDoctor, to launch a suite of digital patient engagement tools as it looks to introduce new ways of delivering outpatient care.

The trust has introduced technology that will maximise the number of available appointments, and maintain communication with patients. 

Through the engagement tools, patients can continue to be seen at home where clinically appropriate, without the need for them to travel into the hospital. Patients can also view hospital letters online and take part in video-consultations on their phone, tablet, laptop or computer.

Furthermore, hospital staff can now use digital tools to reduce the time spent managing the booking process, with appointment reminders sent automatically to patients. 

BC PLATFORM PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICAN ACCESS TO PRECISION MEDICINE

Global healthcare data management company BC Platforms (BCP), has announced a new partnership with Artisan Biomed, a genomics services and health solutions provider that aims to develop precision medicine in South Africa.

This new partnership provides Artisan with enhanced integration with BCP’s genomics platform, which aims to boost health technology in South Africa.

Currently, precision medicine is not routinely available to most patients in South Africa and the rest of the African continent. This is partly attributed to a scarcity of genomic data available for Africans, resulting from a lack of digitised data, systematic data structure, and access to tools for analysis and interpretation.

The initiative aims to address the issue of people of African descent being under-represented in genomics research, which has negative implications for developing and testing tailored approaches to clinical care and treatments.

SHEFFIELD TEACHING HOSPITALS ABANDONS £400M EPR TENDER

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT has put on hold a tender worth £400 million which would see a new electronic patient record system installed in its hospitals.

The trust issued the tender in August 2020 for the new EPR, for which the funds would go in purchasing the system, training staff and maintenance over the duration of its use at the hospitals.  

An update to the tender, published in April 2021, explained the trust “decided not to proceed with this procurement exercise due to low confidence that it will deliver a competitive result”.

Kirsten Major, chief executive, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT explained: "We will now take a short period of time to decide what the next steps will be and take the opportunity to reflect on our post COVID world and how we have been working for the past 15 months.

"The learning and work carried out to date is not wasted and has proved invaluable in terms of bringing clarity to what we need in the future to deliver the quality of care and patient/staff experience we want to provide."

SHROPSHIRE, TELFORD AND WREKIN TO JOIN UP CARE

UK-based Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin STP became an Integrated Care System (ICS) last month, as part of NHS England’s recent announcement of 13 new ICSs nationally. The shared care record is part of the ICS’s roadmap to provide a joined-up approach to planning and providing local health and care services across the county.  

Graphnet Health has been awarded the contract to join up care for individuals in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin with a new shared care record and population health analytics platform.

Health and care professionals in neighbouring Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent are already using the Graphnet solution to power the region’s shared care record, known locally as One Health and Care. This shared care record will be extended to include the organisations and populations of the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICS. One Health and Care will support 1.6 million residents when the extension is complete.