EHI’s industry round-up: February

This month’s industry round-up includes news of deployments, company alliances and partnerships, and wins in the national e-government awards for the N3 networks and the Prison Health IT Programme for its deployment of TPP’s SystmOne Prison across England. It also records the appointment of a new chair for the National Vision User Group: Katie Applebee.

Cambio selects SafeScript for e-prescribing at Wigan

Cambio Healthcare Systems has chosen SafeScript to help deliver its e-prescribing and decision support services at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust. Cambio will deploy SafeScript’s World Standard Drug Database as part of a suite of clinical support services that are being implemented at the trust using Cambio’s COSMIC platform. Managing director of SafeScript, Roger Weeks, said: "Our unique thesaurus technology has been designed specifically to support clinician decision making at the point of drug prescribing, dispensing and administration."

Phoenix helps Leeds address licencing issues

Phoenix Software has implemented its Licence Dashboard for Leeds Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The software interfaces with Microsoft’s System Centre Configuration Manager/Systems Management Server and makes it easier to audit licencing compliance. IT manager Russell Hornshaw said: "Managing the transfer of licence between PCs when they came to their end of life was becoming a major headache. We can now effectively manage and report on our entire software licence base."

Four Seasons gets on Vidyo

Four Seasons Health Care, an independent healthcare provider, is using Vidyo’s multipoint HD VidyoConferencing to cut the costs of travel between its 400 facilities in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Jersey and the Isle of Man. The system works with the company’s existing PCs and laptops and over general IP networks, without the need for specialist infrastructure.

N3 and prison health IT programme win recognition

The NHS IT network N3 and the Department of Health’s Prison Health IT Programme have been recognised in the national e-government awards. The N3 network won the award in the central e-government: team category; while the Prison Health IT programme was highly commended in the same category for its work installing TPP’s SystmOne Prison software throughout England. NHS Connecting for Health said N3 earned its award for migrating to newer, faster and lower cost technologies over the past year, resulting in savings of more than £20m.

Cloud2 picks up Innovation Showcase award

Cloud2 has won the Innovation Showcase award at Yorkshire Venturefest. The company was named as the firm with the best growth potential and won a prize valued at £16,000, including mentoring support from The Alternative Board, office space, accountancy, legal and PR support and training. Director Taran Sohal said: "The way we’ve grown our business over the last two years, I could see us becoming a £5m turnover company within the next three to four years. We’ve worked with a couple of companies outside of the NHS sector, and that’s a prelude to our move to take the solution accelerator to the corporate and business sector.”

Image Analysis gets CE certification

Image Analysis has announced that the British Standards Institute has issued the CE marking certification to its Dynamika workstation. The certificate is used to show that software used in diagnostic imaging conforms to essential health and safety requirements and will allow the company to freely sell and distribute its products through the 28 countries of the European Economic Area. The company has also received its ISO certificate.

Software Europe Software selected by NHS re:source

Software Europe has been awarded a UK-wide public services agreement to provide its Expenses (NHS) product to a number of NHS trusts. The agreement follows an evaluation process by NHS procurement hub re:source, which represents 25 trusts that are members of the East Midlands Procurement Hub and Hertfordshire NHS Supply Management Confederation. Neil Everatt, managing director of Software Europe, said: “In today’s economic climate, the savings available through automating the expense claim process are significant. We are looking forward to working with re:source for their extensive experience in delivering quality and efficiencies in procurement on behalf of NHS organisations.”

CliniSys leads Diagnostic Alliance

CliniSys has announced the launch of the CliniSys Diagnostics Alliance, which has been formed to offer pathology services direct access, through a single delivery organisation, to a portfolio of solutions to enhance their investment in pathology IT. The alliance has three additional members: Conworx, which provides a centralised platform of the management of Point of Care Testing, G2 Speech, which provides speech recognition and digital dictation, and Visbion, an expert in connectivity and image management.

Cerner providers announce partnership

Cerner Millennium service providers, Apira and TCM Solutions, have announced a strategic partnership to provide end-to-end deployment and support services for trusts implementing the system. Mark Jones, managing director at Apira, said: “The deployment of Cerner Millennium is a strategic undertaking that requires a range of specialist skills and knowledge. This partnership gives us a rich resource pool, combining Apira’s trust-side project experience with TCM Solutions’ support, release management, and service management expertise.”

Streets Heaver and Clinical Solutions partner on cloud

Streets Heaver and Clinical Solutions have formed a partnership to allow Streets Heaver’s healthcare systems to be implemented on a cloud computing basis. The companies say the partnership will also assist private providers who need Choose and Book connectivity, as it will remove the need for local installation of hardware or software. Shaun Hopgood, executive vice president UK and Ireland, Clinical Solutions said: "This partnership will enable a variety of healthcare customers to take advantage of next generation virtualised solutions."

Healthcare at Home buys Sciensus

Healthcare at Home, a provider of home-based healthcare and specialty pharmacy services, has acquired Sciensus, a provider of health informatics for the NHS and pharmaceutical industry. The company said it was interested in Sciensus’ ability to capture information about how treatments work in ‘real life’ settings and that the acquisition would allow it to improve its own data capture and reporting systems with a view to building an evidence base for treating patients outside traditional care settings.

Vision user group has new chairman

Kathie Applebee, strategic management partner with a practice in Cornwall, is the new chairman of the National Vision User Group (NVUG). Applebee has been a member of the NVUG Executive Committee since 1991, and said she was honoured to be taking over the role from Dr Tom Davies. Applebee, who is also a psychologist and management consultant, said that each of the four countries of the UK has its own unique challenges, and that the NVUG’s system of nationwide representation helped ensure these could be addressed. She added: "General practice is facing unprecedented challenges at present and practices need IT systems that support their changing needs. The NVUG is committed to working with its members to develop their usage of Vision to ensure that it continues to provide the support on which we have all come to rely."