EHI’s industry news roundup 27.05.08

E-Health Insider’s industry news round up for the week ending 27 May 2008 featuring supplier news, awards and information on newly published research reports.

Supplier news

PromptSMS selects Tyntec For health sector SMS alerting

Mobile messaging services provider TynTec has announced that it has been selected by Australian SMS gateway PromptSMS to provide high-reliability messaging for mission critical health sector applications. Under the deal, PromptSMS’s clients will be able to use TynTec’s guaranteed delivery SMS for the emergency alerting of doctors as well as appointment reminders for patients.

iB Solutions wins £1.75m contracts with 16 NHS trusts

IBA subsidiary iB Solutions has won five contracts with 16 NHS trusts worth a total of £1.75m for its Integra range of financial and purchasing applications. A consortium of five NHS trusts in Greater Manchester, supported by the North West Collaborative Procurement Hub, has agreed a four-year contract for a bureau service from the group’s data centre at Prestwich in Manchester.

Fujitsu Siemens and Stoneleigh deliver data centre solution to Woolwich hospital

Fujitsu Siemens Computers and network and data centre specialist Stoneleigh Consultancy has announced it has delivered new data centre systems to replace and upgrade the aging client/server-based infrastructure at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, South East London. Tracy Ross, senior project manager at QEH NHS Trust, said: “The real catalyst has been a move over to an ‘on-call’ support service rather than a permanently staffed team. This necessitated the move to a system that could be managed remotely.”

Chickens and technology to aid dementia

A new specialist dementia patient monitoring system, MyAmego, is being piloted at the Birch Abbey care home in Southport, with chickens encouraging patients to go into the gardens. MyAmego is a fob which the patient wears or carries, with a microchip inside. Data about the movements of the patients is captured from the fob by monitors placed around the care home, the patient’s own home or even in or near shops they might visit. At Birch Abbey, chickens are drawing patients out into the garden, enabling patients to talk about them amongst themselves and to their family members providing valuable mental stimulus, in an effort to offset dementia.

Informing Healthcare agrees deal with Map of Medicine

Informing Healthcare, the Welsh Assembly-funded health IT programme, has selected the Map of Medicine, following completion of a two year evaluation project involving 3,000 users and a competitive national procurement.

Newcastle hospital re-launches its website

Following a major web development project led by digital agency, TH_NK, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has re-launched its website with a brand new version of its online offering – www.newcastle-hospitals.org.uk.

Carmarthen hospital virtualises infrastucture

West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen is giving its doctors, nurses and clerical staff faster access to electronic and online resources through a new centralised and virtualised IM&T infrastructure, provided by Esteem Systems. With secure, reliable and fast access to clinical information medical and clerical staff will be able to provide improved levels of service to the trust’s patients. 

Barchester Healthcare chooses BACScontingency payment backup system

Barchester Healthcare, a care home provider, has signed a contract with BACScontingency.com for the provision of a back-up service in the event of a failure of its BACS payment system. The company provides care to over 10,000 residents and employs over 14,000 members of staff.

DIPEx launches new website for young people with Epilepsy

To mark The National Epilepsy Awareness Week, DIPEx, a charity which publishes personal accounts of people’s experiences of health and illness on the web, has announced the launch of a multimedia website about young people’s experiences of living with Epilepsy. The site features 41 young people talking openly about all aspects of living with epilepsy and includes 350 video, audio and written clips.

Quicksilva research reveals fears over data safety

Recent research from data integration specialist Quicksilva found that 88% of British citizens are unconfident or very unconfident about how safely their personal data is currently being transferred between government departments. However, these latest government figures reveal that despite this many people still recognise the need for joined-up government to improve services.

DrThom launches digital photo diagnosis service

DrThom, an online provider of sexual health services, has launched a service allowing patients to upload digital photos of any spots, lumps, rashes or sores in their genitals and have the photos examined by a doctor who specialises in sexual health. A patient diagnosed using the photos can then request treatment online and be sent it by post, all without the need for a face-to-face consultation. The service, costing £49.99, means that patients worried about warts or herpes or other sexual infections can now be diagnosed without having to go to a clinic.

Wax Digital to provide County Durham with source-to-pay solution

Wax Digital has secured its first major UK public sector client with a seven year contract to provide County Durham and Tees NHS Trusts with a full source-to-pay solution. The system will manage circa £350 million in annual expenditure across 7,000 users.

Awards

Entries open for BT e-Health Insider Awards 2008

New categories in the BT e-Health Insider Awards 2008 will reward excellent work by healthcare information and communications technology professionals in vital areas such as patient safety, security and wireless working. Details of the awards and online entry forms are at: www.ehealthawards.com.

Northumbria wins pharmacy award for e-learning package

This year’s First DataBank Europe Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists UKCPA Information Technology Award has been awarded to the Pharmacy department of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, it was announced today. The project team is commended for its development of a Medicines Management e-learning package to improve the effectiveness of medicines management training across the Trust.

Research Reports

EHI publishes new report focusing on web 2.0

Internet developments that brought us sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia are now set to revolutionise healthcare, according to a new research report from E-Health Insider. Titled ‘Web 2.0 in the Health Sector: Industry Review with a UK perspective’ the report concludes that new applications based on social health networks and content generated by health service users themselves will rapidly evolve to challenge existing healthcare systems and create new ways of delivering our healthcare. An executive summary of the ‘Web 2.0 in the Health Sector: Industry Review with UK Perspective’ report is available here.

Wireless Healthcare publishes 2008 outlook on wireless technology

Healthcare providers are increasingly using wireless technology to minimise the cost and disruption associated with the deployment of innovative e-health and telecare services.

According to a report by Cambridge-based analysts, Wireless Healthcare, when healthcare providers are looking for technology that will reduce the cost of care, wireless is often the networking platform of choice.