Healthcare IT industry news in brief

This week’s industry round up features a new deal for Emis Health, a link-up between System C and an electronic document management provider, two significant PACS developments for Insignia, and a partnership between Boots and Tunstall Healthcare. Also, a new sepsis tool for Emis users.

Partnerships and acquisitions

Emis Health announces contract with Celesio

Emis Health has announced a contract with Celesio, a healthcare services company that runs the LloydsPharmacy chain and outsourced hospital services. The contract will see Emis Health deliver its Pharmacy Access system to the whole of Celesio’s retail pharmacy estate, including LloydsPharmacy, integrate this with the ProScript software that enables repeat prescription requests via the Emis Web GP system, and extend use of the My Local Pharmacy app for patients.

Ian Taylor, the managing director of Emis Health Community Pharmacy, said the win took its market share to around 50%, so “nearly half of the country’s community pharmacists will now have the integrated software they need to provide joined-up care in partnership with GPs and other healthcare colleagues.”

Servelec acquires Synergy

Servelec has announced that it has conditionally agreed to acquire the Synergy business from Tribal Education. Servelec has a social care product suite that will now be combined with the Synergy suite that is used by local authorities to manage information within children’s services.

This will help to create a ‘single view of the child’ across all areas of service provision, reducing the need for multiple data entry, and supporting collaborative working. At least some element of Synergy is implemented in 100 local authorities in England and Wales; or around two thirds of councils.

System C and IMMJ Systems team up

System C has teamed up with IMMJ Systems to enable the full integration of the Medway electronic patient record with the MediViewer electronic document management system, which enables hospitals to scan, archive and retrieve paper medical records. In a statement, the companies said the two systems would be “very tightly integrated” so that Medway users could launch the EDM from within their core software and store letters or notes generated in Medway within the EDM automatically.

Tunstall and Boots work on home service

Boots and Tunstall Healthcare are launching a new service called ‘Home Assist’ to offer 24/7 support to people living in their own homes and their families. The service offers an alarm pendant linked to a call centre that can send help if the user has an accident or illness, and is aimed at older people who don’t qualify for local authority schemes or public funding. The new service can be bought in-store, online or over the phone.

Medelinked launches partner programme

Medelinked has launched a partner development programme with the intention of accelerating the global development and adoption of medical, wellness and fitness apps, devices and sensors. The programme is based around the Medelinked Health Cloud, which provides necessary infrastructure, including open APIs and software development kits, and should simplify the route to market.

Medelinked has conducted research that has identified a lack of integration with IT systems and services as a block on the adoption of apps by health professionals and consumers. For instance, it says few prescribing apps integrate with health records; whereas its platform is already integrated with the Allscripts electronic health record. The partner programme developer site is on GitHub and further information is available from the company’s own website.

Digital imaging developments

Insignia PACS goes live at Royal Berkshire

Insignia Medical Systems has installed its picture archiving and communications system and reporting solution at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. The move involved the migration of more than 40 terabytes of historical data from the trust’s previous PACS, and is enabling radiologists to view more than 5,000 images a day from 30 new workstations. A further 22 workstations have been delivered to provide a home reporting service as part of a service transformation programme.

Insignia wins contract from Oxford

Insignia Medical Systems has also announced that it has been selected to provide its radiology imaging software to Oxford University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which runs nine sites and performs more than 500,000 radiology examinations per year.

The trust will install Insignia’s full suite of PACS products, including the InSight 4D viewer, regional sharing and advanced home reporting services, and more than 100 terabytes of data will be migrated from its old digital imaging system to the new one, using the Insignia Migration Service. Mike Dagley, project manager at Insignia, said this would be one of the largest migrations in the UK.

Product developments

Emis Health creates sepsis alert system

The Emis Web clinical software used by GP practices has been updated with an algorithm developed by the UK Sepsis Trust that provides a series of escalating prompts when a patient is displaying potential signs of sepsis. Around 44,000 people die from sepsis in the UK every year, and research has suggested that around a third could be saved if the condition was spotted and treated earlier. Emis' update was trialled in Stockton on Tees, and details of it will be available to other system suppliers.

Installations

Northern Devon trust deploys unified feedback platform

Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is to deploy Questback to support staff engagement and get a better view of feedback from across the organisation. As a first step, the trust will create an online community, open to all staff, to encourage them to share feedback, learn from each other, and communicate with peers. The trust will also be able to launch surveys and other initiatives from the platform, analyse these faster, and map the results.