Digital Health’s monthly roundup of contracts and go lives

Digital Health’s monthly roundup of contracts and go lives brings you news of a collaboration between Novo Nordisk and Abbotts that will improve the lives of diabetic patients, two deployments at Medway NHS Foundation Trust and the roll-out of an EPR app for mobile workers at NHS Forth Valley.

Royal College of Radiologists partners with xWave

As we neared the end of October we saw the news that the Royal College of Radiologists had partnered with xWave to help tackle a waiting list backlog.

xWave’s clinical decision support platform will be made available across the UK in a bid to reduce unnecessary scans and wasted appointments. It allows clinicians to input information about a patient’s case and then receive a ‘next step’ action suggestion that is in line with the latest evidence-based guidance.

The solution has already been deployed across one hospital group in Ireland with good results. The average referral-to-vetting time dropped to just 14 minutes – a massive improvement on the previous 7.5 working days timescale average.

Medway goes live with EPR and ePMA

Earlier this month Medway NHS Foundation Trust went live with an electronic prescribing and medications management (ePMA) system and also deployed an electronic patient record (EPR) in its emergency department.

The EPR deployment was an extension of Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EPR – which went live across the trust’s adult inpatient wards at the end of last year.

The go live of the ePMA – which happened just four days after the EPR was deployed – was the latest phase of its wider EPR strategy.

Both solutions will help drive improved patient care, through better patient flow through the hospitals, quicker admissions, more efficient discharges and greater oversight of patient data.

West Midlands pathology networks roll out PACS

Also in November, we saw four pathology networks in the West Midlands deploy a new picture archiving and communication system (PACS) to improve the speed and accuracy of cancer diagnoses.

The programme is delivered in conjunction with Sectra. It will allow healthcare professionals to access, view and analyse diagnostic images using a number of digital tools.

The PACS will also support improved collaboration across the network and encourage the sharing of expertise and capacity to manage the growing demand for services.

The four pathology networks to roll out the solution are Black Country Pathology Service, Birmingham and Solihull, South Midlands Pathology, and North Midlands, South Cheshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

NHS Forth Valley supports mobile workers with EPR app

This month we saw NHS Forth Valley deploy the Morse electronic patient record (EPR) app to its mobile community workforce to boost efficiency and collaboration.

The solution, from Cambric Systems, is equipping over 1,000 healthcare professionals with access to the latest patient and clinical data remotely. It can also be used both on and offline.

Thanks to the app enabling staff to share and update healthcare data with colleagues it is also supporting improved communication and decision-making for Morse users.

Novo Nordisk and Abbott team up for diabetes care

Most recently we saw a partnership between Novo Nordisk and Abbott be established to help people living with diabetes better manage their condition.

The Novo Nordisk’s smart connected pens are now compatible with Abbott’s FreeStyle LibreLink app. The collaboration means that diabetic patients can view both their insulin dosing data and their glucose data together in one place when using the app.

This allows users to review both sets of data to see how different factors such as dose timing and insulin amounts impact on glucose patterns.