Birmingham NHS trust deploys patient portal solution

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has selected Wellola to deliver its new patient portal platform.

The platform will enable the trust to offer enhanced patient-facing services, including the ability for patients to view aspects of their medical record, manage appointments, complete online forms, and access educational resources.

It is hoped this will allow the trust to change the way it engages with patients and involve them more in their own health and wellbeing.

The platform will manage the two million patient interactions the trust has with patients across the West Midlands region each year.

And the implementation is currently underway, with a view to deploy across all areas of the trust over the coming months.

Bolaji Akinwale, electronic patient record programme manager at the trust, said: “Over the last five years we have been working to accelerate the use of digital technology within our services.

“Up to now much of this work has focused on ensuring colleagues, especially patient-facing ones, have the tools they need to provide the best care to our service users.

“This next phase is a really-important step in putting more power and choice in the hands of our service users.”

The project is just the latest endeavour in what has been a busy few months for the trust.

Last October, it invested in cyber security services from CyberGuard to keep patient data safe.

And, a month later, it went live with an electronic patient record (EPR) provided by RiO in one of its wards as part of a ‘testbed’ launch, becoming the first inpatient facility to trial the new system for recording and accessing patient information within the trust.

Wellola has previouisly collaborated with the Irish Healthcare Service Executive to deploy its solution, Portasana, for GPs across Ireland, with the partnership with BCHC its latest venture.

Sonia Neary, co-founder and chief executive at Wellola, said: “Our partners and customers are increasingly voicing challenges related to increasing demand for services, waiting lists, and management of bed capacity.

“Our hope is to alleviate these pressures, among others, for organisations such as BCHC.

“Wellola’s portal is already deployed in many public and private healthcare organisations in the UK and Ireland, giving patients access to both primary and secondary care services through one integrated platform, and we are delighted to have secured another NHS trust working in the community setting.”