Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust empowers digital strategy with data migration programme

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has announced that it will use Perceptive Software to help with its picture archive and communications (PACS) data migration from the NHS National Programme for IT.

With many NHS contracts for PACS due to come to an end, the trust will work with Perceptive Software to implement a replacement programme to pull its archive directly from its tape back-ups rather than over the NHS National Network to speed up the process.

The implementation of Perceptive Software’s Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) will form part of a comprehensive media imaging IT system that will see the data migration of around 3,000,000 existing imaging studies from the legacy PACS system to the new programme.

Healthcare providers spend millions each year improving interoperability of health data, but achieving a patient-centric context and the ‘high-definition’ Electronic Health Record, with a complete picture of a patient's total experience, is a goal that eludes most organisations

The trust will also extend its existing environment by adding the Perceptive VNA module and migration services, which will accelerate the replacement programme so that the completion time is reduced from June 2016 to around October this year.

under the project, PACS images will be stored electronically and viewed on screens, and the replacement programme will provide a secure network for transmission of patient information from MRI scans to CT scans, enabling images to be viewed and archived for storage, retrieval and reporting. In addition, all non-image data, such as scanned documents, may be incorporated using consumer industry standards like PDFs, delivering a more-rounded platform to access all relevant documentation relating to a patient's care.

Matt Howden, head of ICT operations and technical strategy from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We provide acute and specialist healthcare services to more than 2.5million residents in Nottingham and its surrounding communities so we need to ensure that we can access medical records, consisting of patient information, clinical correspondence and imaging easily and securely. Having access to all the data relating to a patient record available through one platform is a key requirement as part of our wider ‘Digitisation’ and Electronic Care Record (ECR) strategy.

The Perceptive XDS capable VNA will be a cornerstone of the trust's digital health record, empowering the secure sharing of information and imaging, compliant to IHE standards across the Nottingham health community

He added: "The Perceptive XDS capable VNA will be a cornerstone of the trust's digital health record, empowering the secure sharing of information and imaging, compliant to IHE standards across the Nottingham health community."

Mark O’Herlihy, EMEA healthcare director at Perceptive Software, added: "We have extensive experience of working with the NHS and know that data migration is a major area of concern, and one of the things that can delay progress. Healthcare providers spend millions each year improving interoperability of health data, but achieving a patient-centric context and the ‘high-definition’ Electronic Health Record (EHR), with a complete picture of a patient's total experience, is a goal that eludes most organisations.

“We’re delighted to be working with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust to implement the Perceptive VNA and data migration solutions. It will provide control of clinical content, including all enterprise medical images, accelerating patient information to the point of need while reducing healthcare integration costs and inefficiencies.”