Although we know that data and speedy access to it can have life changing implications for some patients, it can often be slow work to find the right files. Downtime can mean that crucial hours or minutes are lost. And records are often at risk of ransomware and other cyber-attacks. Ultimately, impacting on patient care.

That’s because even the most powerful file sharing solutions will struggle to reach their potential without the right parameters in place. Especially in the healthcare sector, where privacy rules compound the usual complexity of storing and exchanging data across different systems, different teams and different locations.

In my experience, the healthcare providers with the most effective and secure file sharing processes are proactive when it comes to managing their file systems. They tame their sprawling data to help their users provide better results for patients. Here are three steps to try to get the most from your file sharing solution:

1. Set meaningful goals

When it comes to your users sharing and collaborating on files, think about what success looks like. What would have the most positive impact on your organisation’s outcomes?

Every organisation and instance is different. Perhaps data integrity and validation is the most important measure. Maybe it’s how quickly users can access files, or doing away with the worry of version control. You might decide to prioritise availability and limit downtime.

But by understanding what you’re working towards and setting meaningful targets to work towards, it’s much easier to see where you need to put in effort to get it right, to measure your progress, and to see the difference it’s making to your organisation.

2. Know and manage your data

File sharing opens up collaboration but it comes with risks too. Malware, compliance issues and synching errors are just some of the challenges to navigate.

To protect your data, take regular audits to better understand what you’re dealing with and to spot your vulnerabilities. Develop data retention policies for a consistent approach to storing and disposing of data to make file sharing easier and to reduce the risk of data loss. Collaborate with your legal and compliance teams on data sovereignty and other regulations.

And put in place contingencies so that your data is always available. Guaranteeing file access during an outage in one surgery by automatically switching to another surgery’s copy of the data for example. So that no one’s treatment or diagnosis is slowed down by an IT glitch.

To facilitate these objectives, evaluate the benefits of a real-time distributed architecture that keeps data synchronised where users are working to ensure availability and the fastest possible access to current data.

Decide how you’ll review your progress and be ready to make changes as you learn more about your data and how your organisation likes to share and work on files.

3. Make it easy for your users

As humans we tend to take the path of least resistance, and of course this applies to file sharing too. But although it can feel easier at the time, using random file names or storing data in the wrong place creates confusion later down the line. It could also mean crucial patient information is difficult to find or that your organisation is at greater risk of cyber-attack.

You know this: but what about the rest of your organisation? Your users are busy and, until they can’t access patient files, data policies won’t be on their radar. So think about how you classify and prioritise data: make your rules easy to follow, and consider how you train your users and how they’ll use your guidance. A huge document with opaque instructions isn’t going to cut it with these users.

And put in fail-safes, where you can, to avoid user error. For example, real-time file locking can prevent files from being accidentally overwritten: when two or more doctors modify their local copy of a file at the same time for example.

Test your policies with user groups to see what works well and what doesn’t. You might be surprised!

Although real-time access to files is crucial in the healthcare sector, access alone doesn’t mean that data is shared effectively. Without understanding how file sharing supports your organisation’s outcomes, without the right protocols, and without bringing your users along with you, the real benefits will be just out of reach.

But with the right foundations in place, real-time file sharing offers huge benefits: helping doctors and medical staff to collaborate, and patients to get the best treatment more quickly.

By Jimmy Tam CEO, Peer SoftwarePeer Software

The post Don’t let Outdated File Sharing get in the Way of Patient Care: 3 Ways to Improve Access to your Patient Data appeared first on .

Ichilov Hospital’s solution was developed using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Digital Innovation Program. Ichilov implemented AWS’s unique customer-centric approach to innovation, rapidly bringing the solution to life using AWS’s “Working Backwards” mechanism and agile cloud services.  PatientSource was selected by AWS from its extensive development partner ecosystem to build the solution.

Since PatientSource was implemented at Ichilov Hospital’s Ophthalmology department at the beginning of April 2022 it has reduced the amount of time clinicians spend accessing patient data from six minutes to six seconds per appointment. Clinicians are now able to make better treatment decisions in a shorter time leading to better patient health outcomes and better time management on the part of the clinicians.

The solution integrates seamlessly with the hospital’s wider IT systems and extracts data to create a customisable dashboard for each patient, allowing clinicians to quickly spot trends in their medical history.

The dashboard can be modified to suit the requirements of the clinician by adding additional modules aligned to their specialty.

Before the solution was implemented at Ichilov, clinicians were spending 90% of each patient appointment accessing information either by searching paper records or navigating slow IT systems.

Anat Loewenstein, Director of Ophthalmology at Ichilov Hospital, said: “The incredible impact PatientSource has had on services in such a short amount of time is priceless. Thanks to PatientSource doctors can make informed decisions in real time, significantly improving patient experience at the hospital and reducing the risk of human error – which is inevitable when data is being handled manually.

“PatientSource has transformed care at Ichilov and we are looking forward to continuing working with them and establishing the solution across additional services at the hospital.”

PatientSource is a cloud based Electronic Patient Record (EPR) solution which integrates with hospital IT systems, allowing hospitals to move paper medical records into a digital hub, drastically reducing human error and improving patient care. Its solution is used internationally and, in within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), including James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr Michael Brooks, Chief Medical Officer at PatientSource, said: “One of our key values at Patient Source is designing flexible platforms that can be tailored to the needs of clinicians. The work we have carried out with AWS and Ichilov Hospital has shown the transformative impact streamlining IT processes to the cloud can have for patients and doctors.

“This is just the beginning for Ichilov Hospital and we have laid the groundwork to overhaul the way patient data is accessed and analysed across services, which is freeing up a significant amount of clinician time to focus on the way care is delivered.”

The post Ophthalmology Solution Optimises Data Gathering at Ichilov Hospital in Israel appeared first on .

Medway is now the first healthcare organisation in the world to be using the latest version of the Allscripts Sunrise EPR. The project began in July and the trust officially went live on 16^th November, meaning the entire process took less than five months. The deployment of phase one was timed to avoid the peak of intense pressures that winter brings on health services.

The collaborative approach from clinical, operational and IT teams, all of whom were aligned to EPR delivery as a strategic objective, meant the trust was still able to roll out the new system to schedule. Clinicians are already noticing major benefits, such as improved communication and time released to care.

In the three weeks after go-live, more than 115,000 clinical documents were created in the system that is now being used by more than 1,000 clinical, nursing, and administrative staff.

“EPR has been a strategic priority for the trust throughout the pandemic, and clinical buy-in was imperative to keep the wheels turning. Being able to build an EPR to fit their bespoke needs meant there was a passion to deliver it right and on time. I can’t imagine it going much better than it did.” Commented Suzanne O’Neil, EPR Director, Medway NHS Foundation Trust.

Although the solution has only been live for a few weeks, clinical benefits are already being realised, for example being able to access patient notes remotely. Previously, an on-call consultant would need to phone the hospital and take someone away from their clinical work to read through patient notes and relay observations. Now, clinicians can access them from anywhere through the Sunrise portal. This is saving 20-30 minutes of time per patient that would otherwise have been spent on the phone talking through paper notes.

“The trust chose to take a phased approach to the roll out, introducing less functionality across more areas.” Adds O’Neil. “We only implemented our PAS five years ago, so we needed to make sure there was appetite for digital and motivation to see the project through. Staff were encouraged by the shorter timeline to delivery, which enabled us to all align to the goal of deploying as quickly as we could.”

As well as clinical benefits, patient experience has also improved. Dr Nabeel Qureshi, Consultant Surgeon and Clinical Lead for EPR, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, comments: “The EPR is transforming our workflows, and is already having a positive impact on patient safety. Having electronic clinical documents all but eradicates human error. Notes are easy to read and can be completed at the bedside on a computer, meaning we spend more time caring for our patients and less time checking handwriting. We also have access to the GP record, so there’s less repetition for the patient or reliance on them remembering their care history, meaning the care journey is more joined up.”

The EPR is also providing benefits on a strategic scale by supporting the trust with data and evidence to deliver on the recommendations from their recent CQC inspection.

The trust was able to deploy at speed, without disrupting workflows. “We now have access to a rich data set that is informing best practice across the wards, and gives us evidence to prove we’re delivering on the CQC’s expectations. All that information is in a single tab in Sunrise and can be transferred into the Shared Care Record for Kent and Medway. The position we’re in to use this data in an ICS setting is very promising.” Said O’Neil. “The project was clinically driven from start to finish” “It was so encouraging to see so many clinicians and operational colleagues engaged with the training process leading up to go live. We took a modular approach, so staff only completed training that was necessary for their specific workflows. This streamlined the process and played a huge part in sticking to our timeline for roll out, as did having such a supportive partner in the Allscripts team throughout the project.”

With EPR being a central component to Medway’s digital and operational strategies, next it plans to expand the functionality of Sunrise to include ePMA in 2022. The trust is also working with other neighbouring acute trusts to develop the region’s shared care record.

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There is no doubt shared care records will have a number of benefits for clinicians, carers and patients alike. However, the implementation of these systems across a number of individual organisations isn’t without its challenges. So where do health and social care organisations begin?

1. Putting user needs first

When first briefed to deliver an integrated care record, it’s easy to focus on the technicalities. It is, after all, a technical solution. But it’s important for the whole design to start by considering what the users need, and then align the technical spec to meet those needs.

From experience working on the Kent & Medway Care Record, the best way to understand user needs is to establish a Clinical & Professional Reference Group that brings together frontline health and social care workers from NHS and local authority organisations. Here you can learn what information they need about their patients, and what would help them make an informed decision as quickly as possible. This will aid a better understanding of the information that would help these professionals to deliver better experiences and outcomes for the individuals in their care.

2. Establishing a governance structure

From the outset of a shared care record project, a robust governance structure needs to be established. This should remain in place until the solution is fully deployed, with tweaks made at each phase. The governance structure should include a clinical and professional group, a technical group, and a project board, with a broad representation of people from across the entire health and social care ecosystem.

During the building of a detailed technical specification, it’s important to undertake extensive market engagement by inviting suppliers in the space to showcase what they can deliver in this area. From this insight, it will be easier to align the specification to what is available in the market.

At the completion of this phase, a thorough understanding of the needs and requirements can be pulled together, and a detailed technical specification can be taken through to procurement.

Once the technical specification is prepared, it’s time to go to market to procure the solution. It’s important to stay flexible with routes to market when procuring a shared care record solution. Being flexible with the route can save time, effort, and money in the long term.

3. A transformation enabler, not an IT solution

The procurement of an integrated care record should not be considered a purchase of an IT solution. IT teams of course need to be involved, and their input is critical, but a shared care record is not just about an IT solution. It’s a transformation enabler for the integration of shared data. A shared care record is also often not a replacement system. It needs to be fully integrated within an organisation’s existing clinical systems and add an additional dimension to these systems. It’s important that this is understood by all parties from the start. Often, when health and social care staff hear about a shared care record coming down the line, their first response is “But what about our existing system? Do I now need to learn another one? Which one should I refer to?” A shared care record sits within existing systems and does not replace what staff already use.

4. Engagement with professionals and the public

Engagement with health and social care professionals throughout the procurement process is vital. We recommend facilitating an environment where health and social care professionals are encouraged to actively engage with suppliers. This can include looking at, trialling, and participating in demonstrations of systems to give end users a tangible feel of the platforms available.

The views of patients and the public are also essential during this phase, particularly if the intention is to have a patient portal through which patients can access their own records. By establishing patient review groups and actively involving them in the procurement process and in discussions with the supplier, organisations can gain valuable insight into the opinions of the public, which can be included in the solution design.

5. Looking ahead to full mobilisation

Whilst the procurement work is being undertaken, it’s beneficial to prepare for the phase ahead – mobilisation. This includes planning for the often lengthy time required for the approval processes within the NHS, and ensuring budgets are agreed in advance. Everyone involved needs to be fully geared up for this resource-heavy phase. Each organisation needs to prepare their budget and resource allocation for the next phase appropriately. Throughout all phases, maintaining the established governance structure will keep momentum and provide support on local approval processes.

To coordinate and facilitate the complexities of local data migration and implementation, a central project team should be established, with central workstream leads. A core project team with seasoned professionals in project management, information governance, clinical safety, communications and engagement and benefits realisation can work closely with their counterparts in each organisation to effectively work through deployment plans.

The role of Information Governance (IG) cannot be underestimated when it comes to a shared care record. By establishing a central Project Team with an IG workstream, the central IG lead can work with the IG teams in individual organisations to ensure appropriate documentation and processes are prepared and approved. With a wealth of data being shared across numerous NHS and local authority organisations, the detail, due diligence, and dedication required at this part of the process is paramount.

During the final phase of delivering an integrated care record, there is a greater emphasis on individual organisations managing deployment locally. Each organisation needs to manage the integration of the patient data from their local system into the new shared care record and provide the appropriate resource in which to do this. With a wealth of data being shared across numerous NHS and local authority organisations, the detail, due diligence, and dedication required at this part of the process is paramount.

Reaping the rewards

Mobilisation is the exciting part of such a transformative project. This is where the fruits of many months of labour can at last be seen. As data starts to flow into the new integrated care record, the parties involved become increasingly excited by the possibilities that lay before them. With each new data feed, the solution comes to life and the life-changing and life-saving benefits become real.

Article by Steve Whiting, Client Director, Health & Care at Cantium Business Solutions

The post Five Things to Consider Before Building a Shared Care Record appeared first on .

There is a need, now more than ever, for organisations to be able to share information between systems and across organisational boundaries. The launch of sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) and ICS and the increasing occurrence of trust mergers, as well as the growing need for a multidisciplinary approach to treat patients who are often affected by co-morbidities, means that if we don’t then it is patient care that will suffer. It is essential for healthcare professionals across the full spectrum to have access to up-to-date patient records and for information to effectively and efficiently flow across systems and organisations.

Data lock-in – not as obvious as it seems

Now, this all seems obvious, but the answer is far from that. The NHS is plagued by systems that don’t talk to each other – a problem further compounded by the decision taken by some digital technology companies to lock-in data. In some instances, this data lock-in is obvious with clauses in contracts stipulating that the ownership of the data sits with that company and that company alone. But in other instances it is more underhand, with trusts only discovering at the end of their contract with a service provider that there are prolonged, difficult and expensive processes for them to retain their patients’ data.

There is the argument that some organisations may be looking to retain this data as a means of making a return on their investments, for innovation, afterall, is costly. But should this come at the expense of our cash-strapped NHS and the patients it is there to serve?

Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, believes not. He has finally recognised that suppliers interests “are too often not aligned with the NHS’ interests” and that contracts are “badly managed”, with buyers often being locked-in to long deals that prevent them from shopping elsewhere. He has said that only suppliers who adhere to “strict, mandated, open standards for interoperability of systems” will continue to do business with the NHS.

Now these are strong words from the secretary of state – words that will be welcomed by every clinician who has grappled with dozens of different IT systems in any given day. But, I’m sure that his words also trigger a sense of scepticism. It’s no easy task to introduce interoperability to all elements of the healthcare system. Change doesn’t happen overnight, contracts are in place for years if not decades and although there have certainly been steps in the right direction, particularly with the introduction of internationally-recognised tech and data standards by NHSX, there is still a long way to go.

We have learnt from the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) that change from top-down is very difficult and yet a bottom up approach can be slow and cumbersome. That said, directives such as the rumoured Department of Health ban on NHS trusts entering into deals in which they share patient information exclusively with one tech company would help.

Exclusivity clauses are unethical as much as they are underhand. They are all about protecting a company’s wealth and completely undermines what the NHS stands for – improving patient health. In barricading patient data for their own purposes, these  companies, that are often the big names, are undermining the fundamentals of science and actually prevent scientific and medicinal discovery.

But, these issues are not just limited to the ring-fencing of patient data for research purposes. Some large tech firms undertake dishonourable practices when hospitals implement their tech solution. For example, we have heard some true horror stories of trusts wanting to terminate a contract and move to a new supplier and they are quite literally held to ransom by extortionately prohibitive costs and complicated processes, particularly with closed systems that have complex underlying data structures, and so not portable to other systems or reusable without significant investments.

Future proofing your decisions

When trusts are thinking of introducing a new IT solution, there is so much to think about that they often don’t consider what is going to happen at the end of the contract. It often only becomes evident at the end what the considerations are around your data, or your patient’s data, and how you safely take that to a new supplier.

As a clinician-founded and a clinician-led company, PatientSource takes the principles of the Hippocratic oath to its core. We uphold the pledge to do no harm and we take those principles into our software infrastructure, hence our overt open standards to data and the fact that our contracts state from the outset how you will get your data back at the end, should you ever decide you need to.

We are realistic enough to know that things change and organisations evolve and so there may come a time when you need to find a technology solution that we don’t supply. If that happens we don’t want to punish you and so we promise to transfer your data over to your new supplier at the going market rate.

We believe that we are unique in this position, but we don’t have to be – and we shouldn’t be. It is a choice of the individual company whether or not act ethically when it comes to the data it handles and afterall, shouldn’t we be putting patient needs first – afterall, it could be any one of us that is needing care.

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