Cheers and tears at BT e-Health Insider Awards

Cheers and tears filled the room at BAFTA last night at the BT e-Health Insider Awards ceremony, hosted by GP and broadcaster, Dr Phil Hammond.

Last night’s glittering ceremony saw over 200 guests from across the UK celebrating the best in healthcare ICT innovation and whilst we couldn’t hand out BAFTA’s famous gold masks, our winners were just as pleased with their exceptionally crafted glass BT e-Health Insider trophies. Joe Fernandez spoke to the lucky six winners from the red carpet.

Healthcare Business Support ICT Team of the Year – Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust

Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust won the award for a blood-tracking solution developed with MSoft which has achieved complete tracking and traceability of all blood products used by the trust.

Dr David Alderson, consultant haematologist at the trust, said: “We’re thrilled to have won this award and received such great industry recognition. Our solution recognised a requirement for a solution that would help ensure patient safety and we couldn’t have put this in place without the support of our IM&T staff team and suppliers MSoft.”

Stephen Parsons, project manager at the trust, added: “We are extremely pleased for all the members of our team who have worked so hard to put this together. It is a tribute to our supplier MSoft and the trust and we have been pleased to see other trusts now making use of this technology. Innovations like this can do much for society and we encourage the NHS to look ahead and try out new things.”

Acute Care ICT Team of the Year – Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust

Countess of Chester Hospital’s ICT Team won the award for their highly effective and enthusiastic approach to implementing eHealth in their busy hospital, including a fully integrated patient care system which is fast becoming a complete electronic record.

Patricia Reilly, one of the project managers at the Countess of Chester, said: “We are absolutely delighted to win this award. It’s great recognition for us as we continue climbing the mountain to bring our hospital into the next generation. The award is extremely important to us and I’m sure we’ll be fighting over where it goes now!”

Excellence in Health Information Management – Homerton University Hospital NHS Trust

Homerton University Hospital NHS Trust won their award for their use of Dr Foster Intelligence’s Patient Experience Tracker tool to gather patient opinion on hospital care.

Jennie Negus, deputy director of nursing at the trust, said: “I’m so exited we won this award. I’ve never even won a raffle, so this award is great. I think this is such a good competition, and everyone is a winner. We feel passionately that gathering patient experience information is essential to ensuring the best treatment and we are chuffed to bits to earn such high recognition for this project.”

Primary Care ICT Team of the Year – NHS Tayside Health Informatics Team

NHS Tayside Health Informatics Team have been pioneers in eHealth but earned special recognition for their integrated data communications network based on the use of a Community Health Index (CHI) number linking individual health records.

Ian Fenton, head of IM&T at the trust, said: “It’s tremendous to be recognised, especially for our team. We have many unsung heroes and this award is dedicated to them. This is something we have believed in and focused on for over 10 years now and we are proud to see everyone from primary, secondary and sometimes social care, being able to get the right record information at the right place and at the right time.”

Finlay Stewart of Taycare, Maryfield, who worked on the project, added: “This award is great recognition of the fantastic passion shown in Tayside and also of the work that is being done in Scotland. It will serve to show the importance of sharing and ensuring healthcare data can be sought and used whenever it is needed.”

Community and Mental Health ICT Team of the Year – Tower Hamlets Care Community

Tower Hamlets won their award for their hard work in being the first London trust to implement new electronic Single Assessment Process (e-SAP) software, allowing its NHS and social services staff to share care records electronically.

Polly Wicks, Tower Hamlets Social Services SAP project manager, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have won this award. It is recognition of what was very much a collaborative effort. The award is going to go on a tour now to all the users – everyone will be thrilled!”

E-Health Insider Readers’ Award for Healthcare ICT Champion of the Year – Dr Mike Bainbridge

The last award category of the night attracted over 1000 readers’ votes for the Healthcare ICT Champion of the Year. After a closely fought contest, Dr Mike Bainbridge clinical architect at NHS Connecting for Health claimed the prize with 302 votes.

He said: “It’s an honour to have won this award voted for by EHI readers. It’s a personal award and I am very honoured to have been chosen. I am very grateful for all the people who have taught and nurtured me when perhaps there wasn’t much to boast about. More recently, I have had fantastic teams around me, all of whom are doing great work that really is making a difference. This is a fitting tribute to all the hard work, which is beginning, and will continue to pay off in the long run.”