HFMA works with Net.Orange

The Healthcare Financial Management Association has joined with Net.Orange to create a range of mobile clinical support and business applications.

The cOS (Clinical Operating System) developed by US-based Net.Orange is being teamed with a portfolio of advisory services, developed with the HFMA, and focused on service integration, care co-ordination and real-time decision support.

Net.Orange chief executive and co-founder, Dr Vasu Rangadass, told eHealth Insider that the cOS provides a platform on which specialist apps can sit and healthcare organisations do not have to remove existing systems to use it.

“It’s an offering that sits on top of existing systems and, essentially, integrates all the data from all the systems into a single healthcare system,” explained Dr Rangadass.

He took his inspiration for the cOS from earlier work in supply chain management for large corporations, including Dell, in which orders, production, dispatch and delivery have to be coordinated in a very precise way, with information about progress and costs available at every point in the process.

Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals NHS Trust started using the solution last year to tackle readmission rates.

The initial app used was a mobile app for community, along with a transition checklist for patients prior to discharge.

Net.Orange chief medical information officer, Dr Rob Beardsall, said: “We thought we should be able to reduce readmission rates by 30-40% and we exceeded that with the first 364 patients.”

Checklists are a key feature of the system as they “promote high reliability,” he added.

He questions the value of many current IT solutions in healthcare, particularly those based on what he terms the “electronic paper record.”

“They follow the same sort of model that we had before [the solution was introduced],” he said.

“We are thrilled to be working with HFMA and many of their forward thinking members who have come to recognise the limitations of the prevalent IT solutions.”

Another key feature of the Net.Orange cOS is its ability to incorporate financial information into the unified view presented to clinicians using it.

The HFMA is distributing cOS via its trading subsidiary HFMA Commercial Services.