EHI’s industry round up 11.09.2009

This edition of E-Health Insider’s industry round-up covers partnerships and new product launches in the healthcare IT market and recent deployments in the NHS.

Lean consultants establish healthcare division

KM&T (Knowledge Management and Transfer) a specialist in the application of Lean Thinking, has established a healthcare arm after working with an increasing number of NHS trusts. It has appointed Steve Casey as director of healthcare. He formerly worked for Toyota, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Unipart. Lean is a business improvement methodology developed by car giant Toyota in the 1950s.

LabHQ promotes LIMS

LabHQ describes itself as a “young and dynamic company” providing Laboratory Information Management Systems to a range of industries, including healthcare. It says its LabHQ LIMS was developed “by users for users” so data-flow can be managed with minimal mouse-clicks. Data can also be viewed over a secure internet connection. But the software is based on ‘software as a service’ principles, with project management and training options.

BlueWare to deliver Wellness Connection Version 5 with Hewlett-Packard

BlueWare has announced that Version 5 of its Wellness Connection clinical document management software will run on the mission-critical HP Integrity server platform within the healthcare market. The company says this will “significantly lower the entry point cost” for healthcare providers looking to deploy its software, while also offering better stability, scalability and performance.

Bolton goes live with Medway Sigma BI

Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with a new business intelligence tool from System C Healthcare. Medway Sigma BI is based on Microsoft technology and allows trusts to manipulate and analyse raw data about inpatient and outpatient services. Ken Bradshaw, head of IT strategy and implementation at the trust, said: It has enabled us to adapt our old reporting solutions to run with a new PAS [and to have] access to all of our data when we need it.”

Stalis wins Dudley BI contract

Stalis Limited has been selected to supply a business intelligence solution to Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, which was formed last year from the mental health services run by two primary care trusts. Neal Lamb, head of performance and planning said: “We have a well defined plan to bring together PAS and clinical mental health data from legacy systems in both Dudley and Walsall and to migrate these eventually to Lorenzo. Stalis’ CareXML solution provides a window to the Integrated Patient Record and also offers us true business continuity in the data migration process. This in effect de-risks the project and that was good news to everyone concerned.”

McKesson partners with Point Progress

McKesson and Point Progress are providing an expenses solution aimed at achieving back office efficiencies at NHS trusts. The DX Expenses solution also enables employees to submit expense claims using a mobile phone and provides a record of every claim made, enabling trusts to find ways to reduce costs. The offering completes McKesson’s electronic payroll suite for the NHS and expands its shared services offering, which is delivered to more than 107,000 NHS staff.

Wirral gets CfH service desk accreditation

Wirral Health Informatics Service has chosen Hornbill’s Supportworks IT Service Management software to support more than 10,000 IT users across Wirral. Since the implementation of the software, the HIS has been awarded full NHS Connecting for Health service desk accreditation as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS. The accreditation allows it to report directly to its local service provider, instead of going through the CfH service desk.

BT iNET saves North Mersey £400,000

North Mersey Health Informatics Service claims it has saved more than £400,000 by awarding a contract for the ongoing maintenance of data networks to BT iNET. Phil Pearse, HIS network manager, said: "BT iNET are leading providers of Cisco-based LAN and IPT solutions, applications and managed services that help an organisation profit from convergence via tailored LAN-centric IT services."