Helix Health links up with Quicksilva

Irish health IT system supplier Helix Health has announced that it has linked up with Quicksilva to achieve compliance with release two of the Electronic Prescription Service in England.

Healthcare systems and services specialist Quicksilva is to supply Helix Health with its Compliance-in-a-box consultancy service, Spine Gateway managed service and Spine-in-a-box test harness.

Quicksilva said the services effectively act as a copy of the NHS Spine, enabling Helix to test its systems and parameters on a live replica, before going through Connecting for Health’s Common Assurance Process.

Quicksilva said the system will remove a lot of the technical and administrative overheads for Helix, as well as speeding up its time to compliance.

Gayna Hart, managing director at Quicksilva, added: “We have wide experience with ETP 2 compliance, having completed over 20 passes with another 30 in the pipeline, We are very pleased to be working with such a forward looking organisation as Helix to help them achieve compliance.”

Helix provides a range of pharmacy management systems for community pharmacies, hospitals and nursing homes and its system is used by more than 90% of Irish hospitals.

The company hopes to achieve full compliance with ETP release two in 2009 and plans to deploy a pilot application in the second quarter of the year.

Crevan O’Malley, sales and marketing manager for Helix Health, said the partnership with Quicksilva was an ongoing project and he said he hoped the link up would cut the time for compliance from years to months.

He added: “ETP 2 compliance is a key 2009 project for Helix. Understandably it is a very involved process whereby our systems will be rigorously tested. Failing is simply not an option as we would have to go to the back of the queue to be retested.”

Helix’s ETP 2 compliant pharmacy management systems will be sold in the UK by GP IT supplier EMIS, following an exclusive partnership signed in April 2008.

Link

EMIS partners with Ireland’s Helix Health