Tags: Integrated Digital Care Record

How the market finally caught up with the Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) promise

I hope you spotted the great news that came in at the end of last month that the most trusted name in the IT commentary world, Gartner, rated us extremely highly in that part of the market known as the VNA.

VNA is not the sexiest term for a technology ever, I’ll grant you – but actually, it’s a really important tool and one that could really help a lot of people.

That’s because the name – it stands for ‘Vendor-Neutral Archive’ – doesn’t really convey what its power or potential actually is. We know – we’ve been marketing some excellent VNA solutions, especially for the NHS market, for a number of years now, and the vagueness of that name has perhaps not been to its help.

Why? Because NHS buyers see the VNA as in, essence, a medical device… it’s a bit of software that is good for storing my medical imaging data, specifically all the PACS and DICOM data that I needed to find a safe and secure home for when the old off-site PACS storage NPfIT contracts came to an end in 2015.

Which it is – a VNA is a fantastic way to store very large data files and access them really easily. But that was never what a VNA was only supposed to do. That’s because, out of the gate, you had this really cool XDS tech built into it – XDS standing for ‘Cross Enterprise Document Sharing’.

Why XDS is so useful is that it is a standards-based way to work with multiple forms of content, of all different types. That means that a VNA isn’t actually just a place to stick big X-ray image files, though please carry on doing so… it’s actually an Enterprise or Document Management System.

Why should I care, I hear you thinking? Well, a VNA might not be a whole lot of use to a manufacturer, a retailer or a financial services CIO.

But if you are

  • an NHS CCIO or CIO trying to help colleagues in different departments
  • and/or an NHS CCIO or CIO tasked with helping connect records with other stakeholders
  • a local authority social care team looking to join up information on vulnerable or elderly patients to help address their complex, cross-team needs
  • a GP surgery looking for better ways to document the patient journey
  • a CCG committed to more paperless ways of working with patient data
  • a policymaker in an NHS England STP (Sustainability and Transformation Project) interested in the power of digital to revolutionise patient care

Well, then – yes – what a VNA can do suddenly becomes absolutely central. How: because it’s the proven, available and tested way to keep all patient data – from notes to prescription charges to medical imagery to social care interactions – in one place.

And from cradle to archiving – across multiple stakeholders.

In that Gartner report, that route of travel has been clearly signaled. The good news is that here at SynApps Solutions, we spotted the potential for this years back, and have accumulated relevant expertise and intelligence on doing just this kind of Super-VNA work (and have some significant trails underway to make a VNA-based Shared Care Record a reality – an in months, not years).

It’s brilliant to see that Gartner has caught up with us – but we’re not boasting, we’re just saying that we are ready whenever you are.

Let’s work together to make VNA do what you and your patients and service users really need it to.

Chris Brice is SynApps Solutions’ Director of Sales and Marketing

A Huge Digital NHS Push

medic-563425_1920October 17th, 2016 – Gary Britnell, who leads the work in the NHS for SynApps, has published an article that puts the recent announcements by the Secretary of State for Health at the Health and Social Care Innovation Expo in Manchester in context.

Britnell explains how the speech is our clearest indication yet of what the NHS will look like as the extra £4.2bn the government has allocated to new IT comes on-stream.

These include the 12 first Exemplars, the opening up of official NHS apps, and a major refresh of the main NHS website – but for Trusts, especially any looking to build IDCRs (Integrated Digital Care Records), more pressing might be the demand for, “Instant access to personal health records online” and, “More interactive, local information about the performance of health services [so] patients can see how the performance of their local services has changed over time.”

According to Gary, the message for the NHS IT leader from Manchester is coming through loud and clear: data, and that it’s useless unless it is made interoperable and securely shareable, which is where SynApps’s work on IDCR is going to help, he argues.

To read Gary’s helpful overview go here

SynApps Is Starting To Help IDCR Architects

education-548105_1920September 10th, 2016 – According to SynApps Solutions’ Gary Britnell, the Integrated Digital Care Record (ICDR) is opening up a practical pathway to the common goal of an easy way for health and social care stakeholders to share information.

How come? It’s because information is the pillar of the IDCR – it’s what will keep the structure up – but the foundation that will make IDCR happen is data interchange. Trusts and sector providers are going to need a safe, reliable and functional way of moving data around. That foundation is also going to have to be data-format agnostic.

NHS England is well aware of the need for a way to work with heterogeneous data formats, Gary explains, which is why it’s so actively promoting MESH (Messaging Exchange for Social Care and Health), the successor to DTS (Data Transfer Service). MESH will have a big part to play in any IDCR project, Gary says, but it will need to have the right elements to work with in order to move information around. This is where SynApps and its work on practical ways to get to IDCR can help, he points out.

To read the full article, go here

SynApps Collaborates with Alfresco and Enovation to Produce Blueprint for Integrated Digital Care Record

September 6th, 2016 – SynApps is working with NHS Trusts to open up a practical pathway for health and social care stakeholders to share information – the IDCR (Integrated Digital Care Record).

Working with teams at Alfresco and Enovation, SynApps has developed a blueprint that offers a way for many different data owners to securely and efficiently share data, checking it in and out of a rich central repository.

Find out more about SynApps’ IDCR solutions.

Making Standards Deliver Great Health IT Outcomes: We Have Some Ideas

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Last time we spoke, I mentioned how we have started to work with Trusts to open up a practical pathway to the common goal of an easy way for health and social care stakeholders to share information – the IDCR, the Integrated Digital Care Record (see here).

Plainly, information is the pillar of the IDCR – it’s what will keep the structure up. But the foundation that makes IDCR happen is data interchange. We’re going to need a safe, reliable and functional way of moving data around.

That foundation is also going to have to be pretty data-format agnostic. A hospital Trust will be familiar and happy with DICOM data, while a GP’s surgery may have never heard of the term. We are going to have all sorts of data, from Excel to HTML to other formats to manage here.

NHS England is of course well aware of the need for a way to work with heterogeneous data formats as it helps CCGs move to the IDCR target, which is why it supports the MESH (Messaging Exchange for Social Care and Health) service, the successor to DTS (Data Transfer Service). MESH will have a big part to play in any IDCR project, but it will need to have the right elements to work with in order to push information around. This is where we think we can help. We’ve been doing a lot of design and testing at SynApps, as well as talking with both existing partners (especially Alfresco) and new ones, like the team at Enovation, on this topic.

Our MESH-IDCR thinking is influenced by NHS England’s own stated route of travel, which is predicated on the central role of CDA, the ANSI-certified Clinical Document Architecture (see here). This is a great way to define how information can be packaged up using the XML language and easily moved around by MESH.

A blueprint for a practical way forward?

I think you can see how the stars are aligning. To get to IDCR we need MESH and it looks like CDA is the best way of making MESH work. The problem is all the heterogeneity of computerised British medical data. There’s a great deal of complexity out there, complexity we think could keep IDCR coming on-stream for far too long.

That’s why we have been involved in so much back room work over the summer, trying to work out how to address this challenge. We have some proposals we think could help, instantiated in a blueprint for an IDCR architecture that can offer a way for many different data owners to securely and efficiently share data, checking it in and out of a rich central Repository. That Repository and an associated Registry is coming from us and Alfresco, while the Enovation team is underpinning it with messaging bus technology.

We are heavily engaged with CCGs who are looking at taking this blueprint and the first fruits of our ideas to the next level so you will hear more from us soon on this. In the meantime I’d be happy to respond to any questions you might have about the proposed architecture.

The last thing I will say is that we are very sensitive to the fact that getting to IDCR is a challenge. There are vast differences in the levels of digital maturity in the NHS and its partners in social care and the public sector. Even neighbouring hospitals can have very different scores. Technology generally is hard but especially in the NHS context.

However, whatever your organisation’s level of accomplishment here, we think we can help. Our standards-based, open, highly partner- and interoperable style approach is a realistic way to get to where we all want to be with patient data as soon as is practical.

So what’s to lose by dropping us a line and seeing if we have anything that may help you?

I encourage any NHS team to get in touch to discuss their own LDRM (Local Digital Roadmap) or individual strategies on how they’re going to deliver IDCR.

We will be at the UK’s Largest Digital Health Show – EHI LIVE – November 1, 2, Hall 1, NEC Birmingham, and at the NHS Clinical Commissioners Annual members event 2016, Amba Hotel, Marble Arch, November 3, 2016, so we hope to see you there.

Or just drop me an email.

Gary Britnell

SynApps Solutions Healthcare Business