Author Archives: Carina Birt

North of England Framework

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ICT Solutions Delivery – Professional Services and Consultancy Support (NOE.0359)

16/11/2020 – 15/11/2023 (option to extend 1×12 months)

This framework has been developed after extensive research into the NHS spend for ICT consultancy services and market research into suppliers providing these services.

A wide range of services are covered within this multi-lot agreement alongside a multidisciplinary lot. It 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.

This free to access agreement offers multidisciplinary ICT solutions relevant to the NHS and public sector bodies.

This framework has been endorsed by NHS England as a recommended route to market for digital and IT spend across the NHS and you can find out more about SynApps Solutions’ involvement here and view our supplier listing here.

 

QE Facilities


Clinical (Software and Hardware) Solutions in all areas of healthcare

​QE Procurement is a division of QE Facilities, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust. QE Facilities employs highly experienced people with multiple professional qualifications in IT and Procurement. The team has built a track record supporting NHS organisations in procuring complex IT solutions which support the effective and efficient delivery of patient care.

QE Procurement has launched its second nationally available framework for the provision of Clinical IT solutions (2021/s 001-002154). This framework is a replacement for the Clinical IT agreement that expires in April 2021 (2016/s 156-283835). The commencement date for the new framework is 4th January 2021 and will run for 4 years. SynApps Solutions is an awarded supplier (click on Supplier Matrix to see Supplier listings) and more details can be found here.

The categories that SynApps Solutions are including in are as follows:

  1. Clinical Document Management – Content Management solutions
  2. Clinical Document Management – Digital Forms
  3. Clinical Document Management – Document Scanning Solutions
  4. Clinical Document Management – Vendor Neutral Archive
  5. Complimentary Software – Computer Aided Detection / Artificial Intelligence
  6. Departmental Information System – Radiology
  7. Image Management – Radiology
  8. Patient Portal Software

NHS Supplychain

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Medical IT Departmental Software and Hardware Solutions

This framework started on 1 February 2021, runs for 48 months and ends on 31 January 2025. This includes a 24 month extension.

Digital systems are the backbone of any hospital with every department requiring a way to store, manage and share their data across the site, region and even nation. The framework offers access to a large number of suppliers across many different clinical areas.

SynApps Solutions is listed under the list of Suppliers here and included in the following categories:

  1. Advanced 3D visualisation Software
  2. Artificial Intelligence
  3. EDM – Electronic document management
  4. PACS – Picture Archiving and Communications System
  5. RIS – Radiology Information System
  6. VNA – Vendor Neutral Archiving

Find out more details here.

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.