Industry round-up 22.06.09

This month’s E-Health Insider industry round-up covers new products, system deployments and other developments at leading healthcare IT suppliers.

Indian buyers seek out UK market

Buyers representing hospitals in India will come to the UK next week in search of new medical equipment, supplies and healthcare services. More than 50 UK healthcare and medical technology companies will attend the meet-the-buyer event at the BERR Conference Centre, organised by UK Trade and Investment. Bob Kipps, senior sector manager for healthcare at UKTI, said: “Britain is a world leader in life sciences, particularly healthcare and this is a great opportunity for UK companies to sell to the Indian market."

Partnership to improve men’s health

Clinical solutions has partnered with the Men’s Health Forum to provide safe online access to healthcare for men. Clinical solutions will provide the non profit organisation with two of its software applications for a new website – malehealth.co.uk – which will go live later this summer. The applications will enable site visitors to assess symptoms and health information. Marce Colucci, business development director, Clinical Solutions said: “We’re confident that Symptom Enquirer and Health Educator will play a significant role in realising the internet’s potential for the improvement of men’s health.”

Royal Bath launches SignTranslate

SignTranslate has launched its hospital product at The Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust after providing deaf awareness training to more than 200 staff. The web-based service converts more than 500 medical questions into British Sign Language and 12 foreign languages. It also gives users access to a trained online interpreter who can explain treatments, procedures and diagnoses. Consultant respiratory physician, Dr Andrew Alexander, said: “Deaf people normally rely on family and friends to interpret at hospital visits but this is often not appropriate due to patient confidentiality. By having SignTranslate at the RUH, we can ensure we provide Deaf people and those who don’t speak English with vital support.”

Imprivata to bring new technology to UK

Imprivata has announced it will bring Imprivata Walk Away technology to the UK this autumn. The technology, which is already being used in the US, uses facial tracking to recognise users. If they walk away from a computer screen, it is frozen until they come back into sight. This prevents confidential information being left open and means that users don’t have to re-enter log-in details every time they return to a terminal. David Ting, Imprivata’s chief technology officer, told E-Health Insider: This is a great product, we’ve had tremendous interest in this as there is a huge gapping whole in end to end security which we can now fill.”

North Bristol uses NextiraOne for £5m data centre

NextiraOne communication services and North Bristol NHS Trust have completed the construction phase of a new, £5m data centre. NextiraOne provided consulting services and allso helped with the design and installation of the physical infrastructure. The centre will have environmentally sensitive lighting and energy efficient cooling systems, which will cut power consumption by 40-70%. It will also consolidate the trust’s IT and communications services into one facility and pave the way for a £400m hospital building programme, due to open in 2013.

Hampshire chooses business intelligence software from Ardentia

Hampshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has chosen to deploy business intelligence software from Ardentia to help it to meet mental health reporting requirements and support trust delivery. The software covers activity reporting for inpatient, outpatient and community care, as well as key performance indicators and service line management. It also provides senior employees with a performance dashboard, from which they can drill down into the data. Paul Warner, associate director of IM&T, said: “Systems from the National Programme for IT will give us solutions in time, but as a foundation trust we need to be able to manage and model our business now.

BridgeHead Software protects hospital admin data

BridgeHead Software has introduced a new product to protect hospitals’ administrative data. The OfficeStore suite provides a single, unified platform for the long-term management of data generated from Microsoft Office applications. It can simultaneously manage email, unstructured files including spreadsheets, word processing documents and information held in SharePoint Server. Charles Mallio, vice president of business development and corporate marketing from BridgeHead Software, said: “These systems often hold valuable non-clinical data, relevant to the electronic health record, that needs to be protected and retained over the long term and remain easily accessible.”