– Croydon Health Services NHS Trust becomes the latest health service institution to use a standards-based way to extend its PACS database as a route to meeting its ‘Paperless NHS by 2018’ target –
Maidenhead, UK, 13 May, 2015 – Croydon Health Services NHS Trust has purchased a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) content platform from content management leader SynApps Solutions to store patient X-ray images as it migrates off its National Programme for IT (NPfIT) contract.
In the words of its Chief Clinical Information Officer, Dr. Tony Newman-Sanders, “In the past several years we have been working with other organisations across our health community in South West London, on how to use the opportunity of reprocuring our picture archiving and communication system [PACS] and associated image data store to do it all better second time around,” explains Dr. Newman-Sanders.
The new system will not just underpin its new PACS solution it will also enable the Trust to share all kinds of content more effectively across different departments of the Trust which includes acute and community services. The Trust also hopes that, working with other SynApps solutions across South West London, it will be able to safely share patient images with other healthcare providers in a way that NPfIT was unable to achieve.
To get there, Croydon has renewed a core PACS contract with PACS leader Sectra, but has added on the SynApps-sourced VNA content management system, based on the Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) Documentum from EMC, that will allow clinicians much easier access to radiology data.
The solution includes all existing diagnostic radiology images but will soon include a host of non-radiology files, from cardiology, obstetric ultrasound, plus videos of arthroscopies from theatre, endoscopy and medical photography.
Beyond that, Croydon is planning for the VNA to encompass a vast range of non-imaging data – such as structured and unstructured medical documents and eventually linking up with the organisation’s SharePoint collaboration engine to manage corporate documents and management processes on a single platform.
Croydon reviewed the services of several VNA manufacturers before selecting SynApps and Sectra, with the former’s expertise in open data standards such as XDS being a key factor, says Dr Newman-Sanders. “Having data secured in a non-proprietary format was at the top of our priorities,” he confirms, while the potential of VNA as a driver towards becoming ‘paperless,’ was another plus point.
Commenting on securing Croydon as another major UK Trust moving to a VNA-based content approach beyond PACS, SynApps Solutions’ Managing Director, Jim Whitelaw, noted, “We are delighted to be working with another major NHS body to help it realise its paperless ambitions.”
The PACS side of the deal was signed in January, with the VNA set for go live with both archived and new X-ray imagery in June 2015.
About SynApps
SynApps is an independent services and solutions company specialising in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. Founded in 2003 by former Documentum services professionals, the company provides consultancy, implementation and support services for EMC Documentum, and has authored a suite of content integration solutions, ConXApps, that allow businesses to quickly maximise their investment in ECM technologies. Organisations across healthcare, government and commercial markets rely on SynApps solutions and services to capture and share knowledge more dynamically and efficiently.
Find out more at synapps-solutions.com, or follow the firm on Twitter @SynAppsSol