Tags: ECM

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.”

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.”

New Survey Reveals Impact of New Normal on Public Sector Information Management

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Covid-19 puts smart workforce collaboration, records integration, and data processing at the heart of public service

  • 18% of respondents log into 20 or more systems daily
  • 26% say their information search facility is ‘not at all intuitive’
  • 35% feel they ‘lack the right tools to find information efficiently’

Hatfield, UK – July 23rd , 2020 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management and process automation specialist has today published the results of its latest survey which explores public sector information management processes, highlighting their significance in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The survey found that public sector workers are widely using unconnected, legacy information systems and some are even using paper-based systems in parts of their operations, making flexible, remote working a stretch goal for many organisations. As the public sector transitions to delivering services in a ‘new normal’ that will almost certainly feature an increase in smarter working, the survey shows organisations must enable easy access to critical information wherever employees happen to be working.

“In a data-led public sector, the speed and efficiency with which employees can access information is absolutely critical to performance and quality of service,” explains James Paton, CEO of SynApps Solutions. “Almost three quarters of those who responded (73%), cited the use of multiple systems across their organisation as the single biggest reason they found it difficult to access information.”  James continued, “In fact, 38% of respondents said they had log into 16 or more information systems in the course of a working day which contributes hugely to service delays and performance issues.”

Moreover, the research suggests that an employee making 16 searches per day, taking five minutes each time, will spend 6.6 hours each week waiting for search results to be returned – or more if those searches are spread across multiple systems. Respondents also reported that quality of the application interfaces they are using is a factor in how easily and thoroughly they can search. 26% say their information search facility is ‘not at all intuitive’, while 35% feel they ‘lack the right tools to find information efficiently’.

Perhaps the most surprising fact to emerge from the survey results is the fact that 60% of respondents rely on paper records to some extent. Encouragingly, however, 71% of respondents said they convert paper records into digital files, for example by scanning or using OCR technology.

“An Enterprise Content Management solution that automates document management and streamlines information retrieval from a structured repository brings enormous cost and efficiency benefits,” adds Paton. “As workplaces become more dynamic and adaptive, the need for digital operations supporting collaboration at distance becomes more and more important. In the same way, platforms that aggregate quickly and efficiently wherever it’s required are a prerequisite for effective business process management.”

The new report, Information in Transition: Smarter Working in the new Normal is available for download from here

SynApps Transforms West London NHS Trust’s Document & Patient Records Management

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Modern, easy-to-integrate Alfresco system allows NHS Trust to improve search, reporting and more

Hatfield, UK – October 14th, 2019 – SynApps Solutions, the enterprise content management specialist, has overhauled the document and patient records management of West London NHS Trust, improving user access to content, the ability to search and reporting.

SynApps works with a number of organisations in the UK health sector and became involved with West London NHS Trust when it became clear that the Trust’s legacy system for its document and patient records management was not fit for purpose.

Users were unable to search text in the Trust’s millions of documents and individual patient records, making it cumbersome and time-consuming to find documents. Trying to generate basic reporting metrics was clunky and slow at best, and often impossible.

“Access to documents and patient records is critical to the smooth-running of the Trust and our previous system was expensive, slow and starting to cause major issues for us,” said Graham Birrell, central records and EDMS manager, West London NHS Trust. “It was clear we needed to change and we started to look at the options available.”

The Trust had to decide whether to upgrade its existing system or replace it, and it was becoming increasingly clear that a replacement would offer the most potential for providing the more modern and improved experience users needed. It was important to be able to integrate the new system with Rio, the Trust’s patient administration system, as well as increasing accuracy and productivity, and improving overall service delivery.

For enterprise-level content management, Alfresco stood out as the obvious option for the Trust. Not only did it have a modern feel to it, and come with some great APIs, when Alfresco introduced the Trust to its strategic integration partner, SynApps Solutions to implement the new system, the Trust was immediately assured it had made the right decision.

SynApps swiftly demonstrated that Alfresco offered a lot more functionality than before, such as the ability to preview content, drag and drop documents, easily upload files and display folder contents. The whole experience of using the system was much easier, faster and clearer, while it is has also integrated with other systems easily and transformed reporting.

“I have been in the NHS for over 20 years and I can’t sing the praises of SynApps highly enough,” continued Graham Birrell. “They’re extremely responsive, even out of hours – which tends to be when we contact them – even though this isn’t in their contract. They put enormous effort into the preparations and the transition to the new Alfresco system, smoothing the way and doing exactly what they promised.”

West London NHS Trust, formerly West London Mental Health NHS Trust, is one of the most diverse providers of mental and physical healthcare in the UK, providing integrated services across 30 sites. SynApps has a strong track record in working with such health organisations, a result of its ability to understand the specific needs and challenges they are facing, according to spokesperson, job title, SynApps.

“Our work with West London NHS Trust is a further example of the success we have had within the UK health sector. It’s a market we have a deep understanding of, and we know how important document and patient records management can be and the impact they have on service delivery.”

Tackling the referred pain of digital patient referrals

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As NHS England mandates that faxed referrals are phased out, and trusts look to alleviate the grind of manually re-entering details between different IT systems, SynApps Solutions’ Chris Brice charts a practical, pain-free way to exploit NHS Digital’s e-RS referrals service more fully – which delivers for patients, trusts and NHS budgets

On the face of it, NHS trusts are already making progress with electronic patient referrals. Steadily, GPs and patients are defaulting to the NHS Digital’s e-Referrals portal which will soon be mandatory for primary care referrals, to guarantee payment for services. Yet, although this is widely understood – and despite an appreciation that referrals by fax, email or other manual means are not efficient or easy to trace – a large majority of patient referrals are still being handled using complex, time-consuming workarounds. Even where requests are channelled via the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

This undermines the purpose of the NHS e-RS, which is designed not only to provide a single central digital platform for capturing and coordinating patient referrals, but also to streamline associated processes, speed up treatment, and provide reliable traceability of a patient’s progress and status.

So what is preventing total take-up of the broader digital experience – where referrals pass quickly to the right person, and targets of faster patient diagnoses and treatment are met?

The issue is two-fold.

First, NHS Digital hasn’t yet developed its own workflow-driven applications to make it easy to pass referrals through the system automatically and track and report on progress.

Second, the diversity of IT systems used by GPs and hospitals has proved a barrier to integration. As a result, primary care providers have resorted to faxing and emailing referrals. For their part, hospitals have printed and scanned those requests, manually re-entering and tallying these with patient records held elsewhere on their systems. Rather than accelerating case flow-through or alleviating administrative workloads, this has often created more work and delay. It is not unusual for a trust to be manually re-entering details of 15,000 referrals per month. Some major trusts accept up to 50,000 patient referrals daily.

Joining the dots

For the NHS e-Referrals programme to have its intended impact, digital processes need to be joined up end to end. Then they can start to exploit intelligent automated workflow. That includes prompt diversions of cases to more appropriate specialists or services (inside or beyond the immediate hospital); and complete traceability and reporting – with rules-driven alerts, to ensure that no case enters an administrative cul-de-sac or slips through the cracks, and that critical performance targets are not missed.

All Acute trusts are aware that the current piecemeal situation cannot continue. As of 2020, faxed referrals will no longer be accepted, and NHS services already face the prospect that they will not be paid for referrals accepted through any channel besides the e-RS portal. So trusts and their primary care practitioners might as well ensure that the e-RS leads to perceptible benefits for staff and patients.

Fortunately, approved NHS Digital development partners SynApps Solutions and Alfresco have already put in the groundwork to deliver end-to-end electronic referrals solutions. These offer trusts all of the integration; rules-based workflow; process automation; monitoring, prompting and reporting required to fully harness the benefits of digitising patient referrals.

From electronically capturing patient requirements and connecting these to patient records; to accelerating the triage process and clinicians’ acceptance/refusal/redirection of referrals; to vigilantly monitoring, prompting and reporting on referral-to-treatment progress, our combined, modular solutions are designed to extract maximum early benefits from NHS Digital’s e-Referrals initiative for everyone concerned.

The expected benefits are substantial – including efficiency gains of 60-70 per cent compared with manually processing, checking and following up on referrals and progress to treatment.

And that’s aside from the benefits to patient safety, as cases are proactively tracked and escalated thanks to automated rules in the system. Robust compliance and performance measures, meanwhile, will help ensure that trusts are paid in full and within acceptable timeframes for the cases they have accepted.

None of this needs to be an upheaval or costly exercise for trusts, either. Our solutions can be run in the cloud as well as on premise, and there are significant grants available for trusts ready to make the full transition now. Funding is applicable especially where organisations come together on joint projects, in line with NHS England’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan. Each trust can go at its own pace too, or prioritise how it tackles its respective migration to a fully digital referrals scenario. That’s because the SynApps Solutions/Alfresco solution suite is modular, offering trusts the flexibility to concentrate on just the capabilities they seek right now.