EHI industry round-up: extra

This ‘extra’ edition of eHealth Insider’s popular industry round up covers a well-known NHS IT director’s move to Kainos, a remarkable long service award, contract wins and company news.

Brendan Major takes job at Kainos

Kainos has announced that it has appointed Brendan Major to work on the development of its Evolve electronic document management system for healthcare services. Major was most recently director of trust engagement with BT’s healthcare programme. Before that, he was director of information and communication technology at Barts and The London NHS Trust. Major said: “Kainos Evolve is positioned to help trusts ‘cross the paper to EDM chasm’ and exploit new and improved ways to deliver healthcare.”

PACS consultant completes 40 years with Carestream Health

Jim Hodge, a PACS application consultant with Carestream Health has just completed 40 years service. He joined Kodak as an apprentice electrician at its Harrow factory in August 1970, and held a number of increasingly senior jobs with the company in the UK and Europe. When Eastman Kodak was bought by Onex in 2007, he transferred to Carstream’s HCIS division. Charlie McCaffrey, managing director of Carestream Health UK, said: “His technical knowledge is second to none and he can always be relied upon to provide an answer to the most deep and complex technical enquiries about the products he is involved with. He is an outstanding professional and enjoys the respect of his managers, peers and his customers.”

Western Health and Social Care Trust selects SMART

Western Health and Social Care Trust has selected SMART/HMT to provide workforce management systems for its 3,000 nursing and midwifery staff. The trust is to implement SMART’s RosterPro Central e-rostering and bank solutions in a phased implementation. The new systems will replace largely manual processes. RosterPro Central will improve compliance with the European Working Time Directive, improve skill mix on the wards, and provide a more flexible system for staff.

NEP Shared System Group deploys Supportworks ITSM Enterprise from Hornbill

NEP Shared System Group, a provider of financial solutions to the NHS, has selected Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM Enterprise service desk software. Supportworks will support NEP’s move to ITIL best practice and will form a foundation for the organisation’s on-going SAS70 Type II accreditation. NEP currently supports 64 NHS organisations using its financial applications.

NMC signs infrastructure deal with Business Systems Group

The Nursing and Midwifery Council has signed a five year contract worth up to £5.2m with Business Systems Group, an Advanced Computer Software company. BSG will be managing and hosting NMC’s core IT infrastructure across two different data centres. This will include managing and hosting NMC’s servers and networks, disaster recovery, systems monitoring, technical design and ongoing consultation. BSG will also be providing database and operating system support and managing NMC’s Microsoft Exchange email, Citrix desktops and telephony (using Cisco CallManager).

Voice Technologies awarded silver ISV competency by Microsoft

Voice Technologies, a supplier and developer of digital dictation and speech recognition software, has been awarded silver ISV competency by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Partner Network. Its WinVoicePro software was awarded the status after passing the Microsoft Platform Test, which included meeting the requirements of Windows compatibility and a minimum of three successful customer deployments. Voice Technologies will have now have access to specialised training and support from Microsoft, to help support its clients.

Networks First launches maturity assessment model

Networks First, an independent provider of support services for network infrastructure, has launched a new network maturity assessment to assist NHS trusts in reaching the compliance levels set out by NIMM, the NHS Infrastructure Maturity Model, developed by NHS Connecting for Health from a model originally developed by Gartner in 2005. The network maturity assessment advises trusts on how to achieve better operational performance and increased ROI from their current network investment. Networks First has also produced a white paper ‘The business case for network management’.