Author Archives: Carina Birt

SynApps Solutions appoints Gary Donohue as NHS Account Director

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Gary DonohueHatfield, UK – May 24th, 2023 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist with deep experience across the NHS, has appointed Gary Donohue as its dedicated NHS Account Director. His remit is to grow the company’s already substantial footprint within the NHS.

Donohue has a long and well-regarded career in the healthcare technology sector, including spells at Salesforce, Hyland,  yHEMC and Fortrus, where he specialised in application user experience, content management and business process management.

“I am delighted to join SynApps Solutions, which has been helping NHS Trusts across the country to modernise everything from patient records to lung screening and radiology scans,” comments Gary Donohue, NHS Account Director, SynApps Solutions. “SynApps is a pioneer in advanced vendor-neutral archives, lung diagnostics and radiology technologies so it is an exciting time to come on board and continue to change healthcare and patient outcomes for the better.”

SynApps is transforming the way NHS Trusts provide the whole patient record including (DICOM/non-DICOM) to clinicians via existing EPR systems while sharing the records with other healthcare providers. This includes local community and potentially nationally fully supporting integrated healthcare in-line with the NHS directive for converged healthcare for NHS Trust’s, ICS/ICB bodies, Mental Health, Social Care and Local Authority organisations to deliver integrated care and pathway automation.

“Gary has a wealth of healthcare technology experience going back over fifteen years so we are thrilled to welcome him to the company to help us provide even better service to our NHS clients,” adds James Paton, CEO, SynApps Solutions. “We expect Gary to be a most valuable member of the SynApps team and look forward to working together.”

University Hospitals Dorset introduce a cloud-based Unified Image Sharing System from SynApps, J4Care and OpenText

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Hatfield, UK – May 10, 2023 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist with deep experience across the NHS, has been selected by Dorset’s three NHS provider trusts (University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust (UHD), Dorset County Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (DCH) and Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust (DHC)) to deploy a proactive image sharing system based on a transient use of  its Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA).

The secure, cloud-based image sharing portal, built in tandem with partners J4Care and OpenText, enables upstream multimedia data captured within the Sharing Domain to be available proactively and without delay to clinical staff at the point of care within their existing image management systems.

“Previously, we relied on lots of manual workarounds with no effective information flow, which meant images taken at one site would not necessarily be available in another department, leading to duplicate images being taken,” explains Peter Gill, Chief Informatics Officer, University Hospitals Dorset. “There are up to twenty clinical departments outside of radiology that rely on imagery and scans so being able to proactively share them is vital.”

Following a comprehensive procurement process involving 19 potential partners, the Trusts selected SynApps, J4Care and OpenText based on performance, compliance and the fact that they could deliver an architecture based on messaging rather than image pooling.

The project, which begins this month, is expected to complete the implementation for core organisations and radiology within twelve months. It will enable proactive image sharing, cross-network reporting, CDC support, a single view of multimedia data, and image sharing beyond the South East 3 imaging network. This will lead to better patient diagnoses and outcomes.

“Access to older images taken across our network improves diagnostics enormously because we can more accurately track symptoms, such as the growth of a lump,” adds Gill. “SynApps gives us a viewing system that will render all images in a single portal, built on a database of metadata, which can bring together historic images.”

“We are delighted to partner with University Hospitals Dorset Trust as well as J4Care and Open Text to deliver this proactive image sharing platform,” comments Jason Scholes, CTO, SynApps. “By enabling clinical staff to access images from across the network, it will make a positive impact on patient care and reduce waste across the Trust.”

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust introduces a cloud-based Unified Health Information System from SynApps & Aptvision

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Hatfield, UK – March 1st, 2022 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist with deep experience across the NHS, has delivered the first phase of a major integrated digital radiology information system contract with Aptvision at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust (BHRUT), in what the Radiology department is calling ‘the biggest structural change it will make this year’.

The secure, cloud-based Unified Health Information System from Aptvision, implemented in partnership with SynApps, provides radiology teams with centralised oversight of the entire workload across its different sites. It is already improving the oversight of the vetting and prioritisation of patient CT and MRI for patients referred.

Phase 1 of the project has just gone live, with much of the new secure, web-hosted system now in place. This will now allow the Trust to triage and process the 600,000 radiology referrals it receives each year – including 5,000 Emergency Department referrals monthly – with greater efficiency. Its previous system was dated, and processes still relied heavily on paper referrals.

BHRUT is a busy acute health service provider operating two main hospital sites – King George Hospital in Goodmayes and Queen’s Hospital in Romford. It runs one of the busiest Emergency Departments in England.  The Radiology team provides services from three satellite sites in northeast London, including the new Community Diagnostic Centre at Barking Hospital. The radiology operation is complex, spanning theatres, dedicated scanning departments, and community facilities.

With a clear, consolidated, digital view across all referrals received at all sites, the Trust expects to radically reduce the turnaround times for priority scanning and reporting.

James Lovell, Operational Manager for Radiology at BHRUT, said: “Having centralised, at-a-glance oversight of our vetting queues means we’re no longer reliant on staff manually finding and collating paper referrals across multiple sites. Now we can monitor everything, cross site, via a single window in the Aptvision system.”

In the second phase of the project, BHRUT will switch on Aptvision’s order communications facility, so that the clock can start from the moment referrals come in electronically. This will take the Trust closer to its goal of same-day vetting for urgent referrals. “By the end of phase 2, we’ll be completely paperless – doing away with that sea of yellow forms,” notes Michael Hepworth, the Trust’s Radiology Speciality Manager. “This is transformation on a massive scale.”

In due course Radiology will embrace the system’s self-service portal option, giving patients more control over their appointments.

A year into the five-year project, BHRUT is impressed with the potential of the new integrated digital system, and the seamless service provided by SynApps and Aptvision. The UK-Irish technology partnership beat seven other suppliers to the contract.

The SynApps-Aptvision solution, which is 100% web based, allows BHRUT’s radiology services to be coordinated digitally from anywhere as part of a ‘paperless NHS’. Ultimately it will enable better patient outcomes, improved resource use, and fewer missed appointments (‘no shows’ are thought to account for up to 10 per cent of appointments across public hospitals.)

Designed to integrate seamlessly with other Trust systems, the system offers controls to referring doctors, too and can prevent overbookings.

SynApps, which has a strong presence in the NHS for providing integrated information systems, is providing comprehensive implementation services. “This is completely seamless to us,” Michael says. “SynApps’ involvement gave us the confidence to choose the Aptvision system, as the company is very well known for its information systems services across the NHS. But having the two companies work so seamlessly as one is invaluable.”

Of the new system, he adds, “We’re investing heavily at the moment, doubling our scanner numbers and increasing our scanning centres but, of the £12 million we’ve allocated, the move to the new SynApps-Aptvision system is the single biggest transformation we’ll make this year.”

Without full integration into trust EPR systems eReferrals fall short

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NHS goals for a paperless healthcare system are well intentioned, but too often there remain gaps in trusts’ electronic capabilities, causing efficiency leaks and hampering overall process transformation.

One of the starkest examples currently is around electronic referrals (eReferrals), an NHS initiative established to streamline the transition of patients from primary into specialist secondary care – from the traditional situation of manual correspondence over the space of several weeks. Managing referrals electronically ought to speed up that process, while giving healthcare professionals continuous and speedy access to all associated notes.

Yet there remains a digital disconnect. Referrals may be coming into trusts electronically now, but too often these are being printed out for circulation with patient records, or re-input manually into clinical or patient record systems. This not only creates extra work for those involved; it also generates new scope for risk if errors are made or printouts go astray – the very eventualities eReferrals were designed to avoid.

Bridging the digital divide

The problem is that there is no inherent way for trusts to connect incoming electronic referrals to their existing clinical or patient record systems, to streamline the onward workflow or accelerate clinical pathways.

Ultimately, the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) really only provides a user interface through which hospitals retrieve electronic referrals. What happens after that is down to each trust to figure out. There are third-party tools out there which ‘screen scrape’ the information from incoming referrals and use robotic process automation (RPA) technology to interpret and capture it, but until now there has been nothing that works natively with the NHS e-RS to capture content and metadata directly into hospital systems.

That’s a need we’re meeting with our new SynApps eReferrals Gateway solution. This provides direct, real-time integration and information capture directly into trust’s preferred systems – whether an EPR or other existing clinical system (for instance one holding medical imaging records). And these could be based on Alfresco, Documentum or some other electronic content management platform – the brand or format of system doesn’t matter.

A solution developed with trusts for trusts

We deal with NHS trusts all the time, and it’s through these close connections – in particular our partnership with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust – that we developed our eReferrals Gateway solution. It allows e-Referrals content to be stored and accessed digitally alongside electronic patient records.

Without this capability, the digital benefits of eReferrals stop at the hospital threshold. And, once the content is transferred onto paper, it carries the same risks of the notes going astray, or not being readily accessible, as have traditionally been the case with written or faxed referrals.

The idea of extending the impact of eReferrals end to end across a trust is to give clinicians seamless, immediate and concurrent access to everything they need – on demand – as part of a broader workflow. This will ensure that trusts process referrals reliably and effectively, and are paid promptly and accurately for their work.

Now that we’re actively marketing the SynApps eReferrals Gateway, we’re seeing demand soar. A major London trust is the latest to implement the solution, and broader interest is intense. The need to clear referral backlogs following the pandemic adds to the impetus to streamline their handling across trusts, and we’re keen to help in any way we can.

SynApps Announces the General Availability of its New eReferrals Gateway Solution, Developed in Partnership with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust

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The native NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) integration, which is already generating significant interest among UK trusts, will allow secondary care providers to digitally disseminate referrals to clinicians with patient records

Hatfield,  UK – September 15th,  2021 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist with a leading presence in UK healthcare, has formally launched its new e-Referrals Gateway solution for NHS Acute hospitals.

Developed in partnership with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, the solution allows e-Referrals content to be stored and accessed digitally alongside electronic patient records – addressing the inefficient practice of e-Referrals being printed out and circulated manually within hospitals. Crucially, secondary care providers can connect this to their existing patient administration or clinical systems, whatever the underlying repository – whether Alfresco, Documentum, etc.

The SynApps e-Referrals Gateway, which was tested in a successful proof-of-concept project at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and is set to be rolled out to other UK trusts, bridges a gap in NHS Digital’s electronic referrals initiative. Usually, when e-Referrals come in to Acute hospitals via the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS), the content is printed out before being passed to the relevant consultant.

“The NHS e-RS is really just a user interface through which hospitals retrieve electronic referrals,” explains Jason Scholes, CTO and co-founder of SynApps. “Unless this is integrated with everyday hospital systems, the digital benefits stop at the hospital threshold. And, once the content is transferred onto paper, it carries the same risks of the notes going astray, or not being readily accessible, as have traditionally been the case with written or faxed referrals.”

SynApps’ e-Referrals Gateway provides the means for e-Referrals content to be captured and stored alongside electronic patient records, or other existing clinical systems (for instance those holding medical imaging records). The idea is to give clinicians seamless and concurrent access to everything they need, on demand, as part of a broader workflow. Unlike other solutions in the market, it doesn’t ‘screen scape’ the referral notes, but captures them natively using the NHS’s native e-RS application interface (API). This enables richer information to be captured, and supports rapid search.

To optimise the solution, SynApps partnered with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, a valued customer and digital trailblazer. “It was important that we got this right – and what better partner than Sandwell – a visionary Trust and a very knowledgeable customer of ours,” Jason comments.

Sandwell, which has eliminated paper from its sites in recent years and embraced electronic patient records, seized the opportunity to automatically upload referrals to its EPR system, so that consultants can triage them directly and move them to clinics.

Word of the latest SynApps/Sandwell collaboration has already reached neighbouring hospitals, generating a lot of interest, and a major London hospital is among the latest to implement the solution.

Says Liam Kennedy, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which is co-marketing the e-Referrals Gateway, “We are very ambitious in our vision and are now in the top quartile among NHS Trusts for advanced digital operations. With SynApps’ support we’re storming ahead, and we’re keen to help light the way for others who want to learn more about what we’ve done.”

“We’re excited about the potential of the e-Referrals Gateway,” Jason at SynApps adds. “Existing NHS e-Referrals handling is at odds with Trusts’ paperless strategies. It is also critical that Acute Trusts are able to handle referrals reliably and effectively, with good traceability – so that they get paid for their work and cover their fixed costs. With this new solution, devised with proactive input from Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, we’re bridging that gap.”

IT for CEOs and CFOs reports on SynApps getting supplier role in NHS

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Carol Baker and IT for CEOs and CTOs have reported on the news that having being chosen to work in Clinical Information Systems; Non-Clinical Information Systems; and Auxiliary ICT Consultancy Services, SynApps Solutions has been awarded a place within the NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC) framework.

Read more here.

SynApps Solutions awarded supplier role within North of England NHS Framework

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Chosen to work in Clinical Information Systems; Non-Clinical Information Systems; and Auxiliary ICT Consultancy Services

Hatfield,  UK – December 7th,  2020 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist with a strong presence in UK healthcare, has been awarded a place within the NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC) framework. This framework has been developed after extensive research into the NHS spend for ICT consultancy services and market research into suppliers providing these services.

The NOE CPC offers access to a range of quality consultancy providers with health industry experience. The framework has been developed with a view to addressing any future technology needs and to meet ad-hoc ICT consultancy requirements.

“The framework provides an easy route to market for experienced ICT consultants such as SynApps. It offers peace of mind to local NHS services who need a consistent, standard method for contracting with suppliers,” says Jason Scholes, CTO, SynApps. “This also acts as an endorsement of SynApps in recognition of the quality of our services.”

SynApps will offer services within Clinical Information Systems; Non-Clinical Information Systems; and Auxiliary ICT Consultancy Services.