Stevens launches Aura Healthcare

Aura Healthcare, a software firm specialising in portals based on web 2.0 technologies similar to those that underpin Twitter, has been launched at EHI Live 2012.

The new company has been created by Adrian Stevens, former iSoft UK managing director, and Mark Hindle, former iSoft professional services director.

Stevens left CSC Health in June, three months after iSoft’s integration into the US company was completed. He remains a consultant on international healthcare business for CSC.

“I believe changes in policy and national decision making have created opportunities for new companies to drive creativity and innovation.

“Despite the recession, I see this as the perfect time to enter the UK market, and EHI Live 2012 is the perfect place to launch a new company,” Stevens told eHealth Insider.

The new company is privately funded and now hiring; beginning with building up a small, Manchester-based development team.

Aura has three arms. It will provide consulting services, act as a product company with a new portal called Immix, and act as a value-added re-seller for Imprivata access control products – which it says are a pre-requisite to its portal product.

The development model is apps based, founded on the Immix light-touch portal technology.

Stevens said this uses Twitter style technologies to read messages sent between different systems without requiring down-stream modifications to source systems.

“Immix is a portal technology that we have designed and developed – and we already have two NHS development partner sites who want the technology,” he said.

“The original idea came from trying to bring modern technology to healthcare at an affordable cost,” added Hindle.

“The database runs NoSQL – similar to that which powers Twitter and allows you to store lots of data in an unstructured way. It provides a massive repository you put everything into and query out in a search fashion.

“It’s a bit like using hash tags in Twitter – we can do same in interface messages between systems without changing those systems or messages.”

On top of this database, Aura will offer clients a series of widgets – beginning with clinical noting and disconnected community care.

Stevens said that Aura had a great relationship with CSC Health, and would not be competing with it. “I still work internationally for CSC and have been very supportive. We’re not CSC we’re a small company.”

He acknowledged, though, that there was likely to be competition in the portals area.

Hindle added that the majority of CSC’s UK healthcare business remains in the hospital market, and “we believe we can surround and support there, rather than compete.”

On future ambition beyond portals, Stevens said: “There are certain product niches we would like to explore, such as closed medication management loop and complementary products to portals.

“We also see real opportunities in lightweight but clinically robust clinicals, order communications and results reporting.

Aura’s first NHS customer is in Northern Ireland, where the company has worked with Southern Health and Social Care Trust to develop a web-based app that can run on any device called Clinical Noting.

“The app sits alongside the trust’s Clinicom patient administration system and discharge module and allows staff to record discharges and summaries,” explained Hindle.

“Using ward viewing, clinicians can also rank jobs by highest clinical need and see tasks associated with them.”

Aura has also begun working to tackle other areas like community data capture. However, Stevens says he wants to make sure the new company doesn’t over-commit and can deliver promises made to customers.

“I think there is room for companies in this marketplace and there is a need. That decentralisation provides an opportunity for innovation,” he said. “We’re going to give it a go.”

Aura Healthcare is exhibiting at EHI Live on stand C76.