South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust chooses InterSystems’ HealthShare for joined-up services
NHS trust connects health and social care to improve patient experience with integrated digital care records
InterSystems has announced that South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has chosen the InterSystems HealthShare® health informatics platform for its health information exchange (HIE) and clinical portal for use throughout the South Devon and Torbay region.
HealthShare will support the trust’s vision to design and deliver more joined-up health and care services for the local community, and to make a person’s journey through the health system as simple and seamless as possible.
We need a system that is truly seamless, so that people receive the right care and support at the right time, in the right place – wherever that may be
The trust provides a comprehensive range of acute healthcare services to a resident population of 280,000 and an additional 100,000 holidaymakers who visit the region each year. The HIE is funded through the Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards technology fund.
HealthShare will aggregate and integrate patient healthcare information across health and social care services to deliver an integrated digital care record for patients regardless of the care location or service. The system will provide a clinical portal for clinicians working across the entire care network, including acute, community, mental health, social care, and GP services. It will also provide advanced analytics to translate the data into meaningful insights, both to improve care to patients and to allow local trusts to better understand cost and resourcing needs across all clinical services.
In line with the trust’s IT strategy, the goal of the HIE is not simply to share information, but also to enable it to develop solutions to problems in the local health economy. HealthShare enables the trust to be scalable and adaptable to address future NHS growth or re-organisation and to be flexible in response to any future change in the size or geography of the trust’s responsibility.
Dr Mike Green, consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon and chief clinical information officer of South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our vision is to be the best provider of healthcare services, delivering excellence in all that we do. To achieve this, we recognise that the most-significant gains are made when NHS organisations work together in partnership to ensure that care does not break down at the boundaries of organisations.
“We need a system that is truly seamless, so that people receive the right care and support at the right time, in the right place – wherever that may be. We will now be able to manage patients’ care in a more joined-up way, across the community, in primary and acute areas.”
Known for being at the forefront of integrated care, the region’s trusts are part of the Integrated Care Pioneers programme endorsed by Norman Lamb, Minister of State for Care and Support. The programme invites local trusts to demonstrate the use of ambitious and innovative approaches to deliver person-centred, co-ordinated care and support.
The HealthShare platform will facilitate joined-up care for the benefit of patients wherever care is delivered in the region
Gary Hotine, director of the Health Informatics Service at South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are firmly committed to delivering integrated care across our health system. To this end, we were looking for a dynamic and flexible system. We already use two InterSystems products, the Ensemble integration platform and the Caché high-performance database, and HealthShare builds on these technologies. Our in-house IT team will implement the system, with training and mentoring from InterSystems, which puts us in control and ensures we need not rely on a third party to deliver the integrated digital care records.”
Dr Jo Roberts, the South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group’s clinical lead for innovation, engagement and communication, added: “As a GP, I am very aware of the pressures within primary care caused by patient information failing to pass between care settings. The HealthShare platform will facilitate joined-up care for the benefit of patients wherever care is delivered in the region.”