Category Archives: Healthcare Tech

Data, Healthcare News, Healthcare Tech, News

Award-winning GP demands to be urgently reinstated in long-running patient data dispute

Doctor says High Court ruling has major implications for other GPs, as his patients call for MPs to investigate 

 

  • NHS England urged by patients to reinstate ‘unlawfully dismissed’ GP
  • MPs urged to raise issue in parliament
  • BMA applying to intervene as ‘interested party’ in GP’s legal appeal

 

An award-winning GP and his patients have today urged NHS England to urgently reinstate him in a long-running saga over patient data which has placed two popular practices under a cloud. 

 

Local patients’ groups are due to meet Labour MP John McDonnell today (Nov 14th) to request that the issues are raised urgently in parliament. They are also seeking an urgent meeting with constituency MP – former prime minister Boris Johnson.

 

A High Court judge stated last month that Dr Sashi Shashikanth’s contracts were unlawfully terminated – for a GP, the equivalent of being sacked – in a complex dispute which now raises major concerns for other GPs across England.

The popular GP, who operates two practices with more than 8,000 patients in West London, is now seeking permission to appeal the court judgment, because despite being unlawfully dismissed, the judge also ruled the case was not applicable for Judicial Review.

 

The court ruling raises major concerns for other GPs who seek to dispute decisions made by NHS England in future.

 

The long and bitter saga was sparked by Dr Shashikanth’s refusal, supported by legal advice and the wishes of his patients, to give full access to confidential patients’ data to the local Primary Care Network (PCN), part of a larger private enterprise. The GP’s practices were the only local surgeries which chose not to join the PCN but offered to deliver services themselves.

 

As a result, his contracts were terminated by Hillingdon’s now defunct Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which also lodged a series of unfounded complaints about the GP to a range of key bodies including the General Medical Council (GMC), NHS England’s GP performance management department, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), each of which rejected the complaints. Both Dr Shashikanth’s teaching and training practices have ‘Good’ CQC ratings.

 

 

Dr Shashikanth said: “This whole saga is totally unnecessary. At a time when GP workload is on the increase, our time, energy and resources are being diverted into fighting an unnecessary legal battle and unfounded complaints, where we should be concentrating on delivering services to our patients. 

 

“I’m seeking to have my termination notices urgently rescinded by NHS England. I have also taken legal advice and I’m seeking permission to appeal the judge’s decision not to allow a Judicial Review. It’s time for this affair to be resolved, quickly, particularly because we’ve been treated differently to other similar practices in England.”

 

 

Dr Kieran Sharrock, deputy chair of the BMA GP Committee England said: “When a court has found a judgment to be incorrect there has to be a legal route to challenge the judgment. If procedural process gets in the way of justice, the BMA believes this has to be corrected.”

 

The doctor has also sought the help of Rob Hurd, CEO of NWL ICS, the body which inherited the mess when it replaced all of West London’s CCGs. Mr Hurd has been asked to help resolve the saga quickly, so that attention can be focused locally on looking after patients, especially at a time of severe GP shortages.

 

John Rogers, 78, a prostate cancer patient, who leads one of the local patient groups, said: “Dr Shashikanth has been treated terribly at a time when the NHS is crying out for good doctors.

 

“Patients at both his surgeries decided they did not want confidential records shared, and our GP and his practices are being discriminated against as a result.

“It’s ludicrous – and a scandalous waste of Dr Shashikanth’s money and taxpayers’ money fighting this in court. NHS England should do the right thing and reinstate our doctor now especially since the judge said he’d been treated unlawfully.”

 

Heart transplant patient, Dennis Ball, 77, has been treated by Dr Shashikanth for nearly 20 years. He said: “I think he has been treated harshly, unfairly, and has been punished because his patients decided they did not want their data shared. I think there’s discrimination and politics at the heart of this whole sorry affair.

“Dr Shashikanth must be given his full status back and should be able to practise how he and his patients wish.”

Healthcare Tech, News, Procurement

Astellas Pharma Partners with Vizibl to Drive Sustainable Enterprise Value Through Supplier Collaboration & Innovation

Vizibl’s Supplier Relationship Management and Collaboration Workspace modules allow Astellas to align procurement teams and strategic suppliers to corporate strategy, and lay the foundations for future innovation

Vizibl, the world’s leading digital procurement platform for Supplier Collaboration & Innovation, is delighted to be working with Astellas Pharma, enabling the Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company to more effectively manage its relationships with strategic suppliers, drive mutual business value, and take its collaboration and innovation activities to the next level.

Astellas is utilising Vizibl’s platform, including an initial combination of its Supplier Relationship Management functionality and Supplier Collaboration Workspace module, to support the work of its centralised procurement function and procurement excellence team.

Vizibl’s platform is helping Astellas’ procurement team achieve its three stated objectives:

  • Gain global visibility of strategic and preferred suppliers
  • Leverage innovation from the incumbent supplier base
  • Embed scalability to lay the foundations for future collaboration and innovation

Vizibl’s platform has already enabled Astellas to significantly improve supplier management and visibility, and determine strategic and preferred suppliers. After the onboarding of the initial cohort of suppliers, Astellas’ procurement team was able to prove the platform’s benefits in terms of visibility and robust governance of supplier relationships to the wider team, helping to secure a mandate for scaling which will drive further strategic value back to the business.

Paul O’Neill, SVP Head of Global Procurement at Astellas, commented: “Vizibl has given us the ability to closely align our global procurement team and our strategic and preferred suppliers to the Astellas corporate strategy to drive mutual business value. Not only have we improved relationships, performance, and outcomes with our suppliers, we’ve driven better, active, collaborative relationships within our own enterprise – enabling procurement to achieve valued business partner status in the Astellas business.”

To further increase supplier innovation, Astellas has launched its ‘I2G Programme’. The first phase will see Astellas use Vizibl’s Supplier Innovation Hub module to drive a round of closed innovation amongst their incumbent supply base, which will eventually be expanded further afield to incorporate open innovation.

Exemplifying the success that has been achieved following implementation, the Vizibl platform has enabled Astellas’ procurement team to be recognised with the ‘Large Enterprise Procurement Team of the Year’ award at the 2022 World Procurement Awards, with the judges citing Astellas’ procurement function to have ‘exceeded its savings targets while delivering an exceptional experience for stakeholders.’

Vizibl CEO, Mark Perera, concluded: “It’s fantastic to see that our work with Astellas is being so well received by their procurement team, and that it is already delivering tangible benefits to the organisation. We look forward to our ongoing partnership as we continue to aid Astellas in driving visibility over their supply base and increased collaboration with supply chain partners. We anticipate their I2G programme in particular will demonstrate the enormous value that the Vizibl platform provides when it comes to tapping into the innovation potential of this award-winning pharmaceutical company’s supply chain.”

Healthcare, Healthcare News, Healthcare Tech, News

Softcat awarded multi-million-pound device tender contract with Liverpool University Hospitals

Softcat plc, a leading IT infrastructure solutions and services provider, has been awarded a contract to be the new device partner for Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The £4 million contract will support the opening and operation of Liverpool’s new 640-bed Royal Liverpool University Hospital which is due to open in September 2022.

Softcat will provide end-user devices, peripherals, pre-staging, deployment, engineering, and recycling services.

During this time, Softcat will work as an extension of the Trust’s Digital Services delivery team, joining an ecosystem of partners to deliver modern health-specific solutions, enabling them to meet current demands and challenges and provide a seamless experience for end-users.

The services that Softcat is set to provide are built to be agile, flexible and scalable, and form part of the company’s wider strategy to support digital transformation initiatives within the public health sector.

Softcat is an approved supplier on over 50 UK&I government frameworks, enabling healthcare organisations to obtain the technology they need at the most competitive price, whilst maintaining contractual compliance.

The device contract was awarded to Softcat following a further competition via the Health Trust Europe (HTE) ICT Solutions Framework (ComIT 2 – Complete IT); a framework that offers a broad scope of ICT, including hardware, software and professional services, to support NHS and wider public sector organisations with their procurement requirements in a proficient and cost-effective way.

 

Adam Rice, Public Sector Director at Softcat, said:

“Softcat plc is delighted to be working with the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to support the organisation in achieving true digital transformation. The contract builds on over 10 years’ experience in helping our healthcare and NHS customers deliver a safer, efficient environment for their staff and patients.

 “NHS Trusts are being challenged by the need to transform the way they deliver care, while continuing to manage unprecedented demand. By helping Trusts harness the power of technology, we enable them to meet the challenge head on and improve outcomes, and patient and employee experiences.”

 

Dr Jason Bincalar, Chief Information Officer at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust added:

 “Softcat is a valued strategic partner who bring to the table significant IT experience and great capability.”

 “Providing the best patient and staff experience at the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital was the driving force for the partnership with Softcat. The Trust needed an innovative way to equip the new hospital without compromising the high-quality service that our Digital team provides at our existing hospital sites. Sharing this challenge with Softcat and leveraging their full technology life cycle service has proved to be best approach.”

Healthcare, Healthcare Tech, IoT, News

IoT Drives Rapid Growth in UK Digital Healthcare

Written by Nick Earle, CEO, Eseye 

The NHS is suffering with a huge backlog of elective procedures due to the pandemic. This means that the share of individuals who are satisfied with the quality of NHS care has fallen to around 71%, and only 53% are satisfied with how the healthcare service runs today.

The good news is that the Government is focused on investing more in our healthcare services and healthcare technology in particular is being prioritised. The Spending Review 2021 announced a substantial increase in health spending, with day-to-day spend in 2024/25 expected to be 13% higher in real terms than in 2021/22. In fact, by 2024/25, day-to-day spending on health will be 39% of total day-to-day spending on public services, up from 29% in 2009/10.

 

IoT is enabling healthcare professionals to be more proactive 

From a technology perspective, IoT is enabling better healthcare solutions and services. Today, IoT enables healthcare professionals to be more watchful and connect with patients proactively. Data collected from wearable IoT devices can help physicians identify the best treatment process for patients and achieve better outcomes. In hospitals, IoT devices tagged with sensors are used for tracking the real-time location of medical equipment like wheelchairs, defibrillators, nebulisers, oxygen pumps and other monitoring equipment.

With hospital visits limited, remote patient monitoring (RPM) and telecare services increased during the pandemic and, rather than revert to in-person appointments for monitoring or support, the use of RPM and telecare is expected to continue on that trajectory. The goal of most healthcare providers is to have connected healthcare in every home that needs it, which is more than most of us realise. For example, one in three people worldwide suffer from hypertension, a condition that requires accurate daily monitoring to prevent serious illness.

 

Conventional monitoring is resource intensive and costly

Conventional long-term monitoring can put a significant burden on healthcare providers and be restrictive and inconvenient for patients, which is why RPM and telecare are the way forward. They enable patients to be monitored and support delivered, even in hard-to-reach locations, delivering data back to medical teams to review and act on where necessary.

However, the success of these solutions depends heavily on device connectivity, accuracy, and ease of use for the target market, which is typically older people who may have lower confidence with technology. This means that healthcare providers must remove patient barriers by making healthcare technology easier to use, so that patients can just turn on a device and take a reading without having to worry about faulty Bluetooth connections.

This is important because – to truly revolutionise the patient experience – doctors need daily readings of blood pressure, blood glucose, pulse oximetry, weight, and temperature levels so they can quickly identify a change and send out a nurse, call a patient in, or alter medical care plans if and where necessary.

 

Ensuring patient trust

However, patients must also trust the device they are using, and trust is eroded if it frequently fails to connect and transmit accurate readings. This affects adoption and means patients and providers fall back on less convenient alternatives. Many remote patient monitoring companies use Bluetooth to provide device connectivity but find it doesn’t offer the reliability needed. From our conversations, this is a common issue, with many identifying cellular connectivity as the best option to provide the necessary coverage and connection reliability.

 

Digital switchover in 2025

Another healthcare trend that is driving cellular connectivity in telecare is the switch from analogue alarm systems to digital. A social telecare alarm device, installed in an individual’s home, makes it possible for individuals to call for assistance. These calls are answered by an operator in an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) who supports the individual to resolve the issue over the phone or they call for additional on-site assistance. Traditional analogue social alarm equipment relies on sending and receiving audible tones to communicate with the ARC enabling them to understand the type of alarm received and prioritise accordingly.

These social alarms have been in operation for around 50 years and have relied on analogue landlines for connectivity. Today, around 1.7 million older and vulnerable people in the UK rely on these systems. However, new legislation means that social healthcare commissioners must move quickly to adopt new digital systems as the analogue network will be switched off by 2025.

However, many have incorrectly interpreted this as a target date to be ready for the transition, when in reality it is the date of the final switchover of all existing analogue network infrastructure to digital. In fact, telephone exchanges began to transition in December 2020 and the pressure to switch to digital will only increase as a result.

This means many telecare systems will need to be upgraded or decommissioned to maintain services to users. Organisations must no longer procure social alarms that can only establish connections to analogue communications, they must procure hybrid alarms that communicate in both analogue and digital protocols through cellular connectivity.

 

Improved support performance and customer experience

Cellular connectivity is a superior connectivity solution compared to Wi-Fi because it offers network redundancy. If one network is down, a SIM can switch to another so there is no loss in connectivity. From a user perspective it is incredibly simple: the telecare solution has a SIM embedded that connects and works straight out of the box, as opposed to Wi-Fi, which requires passwords and more.

In summary, global healthcare spending could reach over $10 trillion by 2022. RPM and telecare are key growth areas but have historically witnessed issues with accuracy in the field. Now, enabled by the latest innovations in cellular IoT connectivity, these solutions will help pave the way for better, more reliable future healthcare provision.

 

Cybersecurity, Health Tech, Healthcare, Healthcare Tech

PureCyber Responds to NHS Ransomware Incident

Cyber security consultancy PureCyber is urging organisations to invest in invaluable measures to protect against cybercrime, before it is too late.

The recent cyber-attack on major NHS IT provider Advanced, in Birmingham, is just the latest ransomware incident to highlight how hackers take control of IT systems, steal data and demand a payment from victims to recover.

The NHS insists that disruption is minimal, but Advanced, which provides digital services like patient check-in and NHS 111, would not confirm whether NHS data had been stolen and continues to restore services, which may take three to four weeks to fully recover.

 

Damon Rands, CEO and Founder of PureCyber, which is based in Cardiff’s Central Square and protects a portfolio of global clients, said: “This recent NHS ransomware attack unfortunately demonstrates that no matter how serious your organisation takes cyber security, you can always be a victim of cybercrime if one of your key critical outsourced services is managed by another organisation.

“Identifying and implementing the correct steps and levels of cyber protection for your organisation is vital, but just as vital is ensuring that your supply chain has the appropriate layers of cyber security in place so that they’re not the weakest link offering a potential attack vector to cyber criminals.”

 

Planning and structure are critical within any cyber strategy, according to Damon Rands, in order to minimise disruption time. PureCyber’s professionals offer a suite of bespoke packages to help create a nation of cyber savvy SMEs, confident in their cyber security capabilities and resilience.

 

He says: “One of the most important points to raise in this situation is that although, of course, prevention of attack is better than cure; having solid governance, policies and scenario planning for cyber incidents is paramount to reduce the negative impact and downtime of an attack.

“Critically, you never want to be in a position of being surprised by a cyber security event, such as a hack, ransomware or the loss of a critical application. The best way to do that is to prepare for the worse that could happen. If you did lose access to a major piece of software, critical application or to data that is essential to your business continuity, what contingency plans do you have to maintain a certain level of service? It’s absolutely key and so important when it comes to cyber security and management of risk.”

Data, Data & Analytics, Healthcare Tech, News

Gerimedica leverages Sisense to empower healthcare practitioners to improve care

Sisense, the leading AI-driven platform for infusing data analytics, partners with Gerimedica, a multi-disciplinary electronic medical record (EMR) company that serves the aged-care market, to transform patient care with the power of big data.

Since deploying Sisense, Gerimedica has seen an average decline of 6% (the equivalent of two days) in admission days per patient, resulting in €540 reduced cost per patient. And with beds freed up two days sooner, there’s also less wait time and more patients helped. On average, customers using Sisense see a reduction in the number of patient admission days by roughly 5.9 when compared to non-Sisense customers.

Founded in 2007 by a small group of passionate medical professionals, Gerimedica has one single driving force: to make innovative changes and improvements to patient health care and treatment delivery. The company believes that data-driven software is vital to improving health care and patient outcomes.

 

Watch the on-demand webinar here: Healthcare Analytics: How Gerimedica delivers insight-driven care

 

“The power of Sisense is not only in the dashboards or the web app but also in the notifications,” says Hamza Jap-Tjong, CEO and Co-Founder of Gerimedica Inzicht, a Gerimedica subsidiary. “Health professionals now have access to alert dashboards that highlight the patients who are struggling or not making anticipated progress. They are able to connect the dots between clinical and operational data and focus their discussions on a handful of patients, which has really improved the way they give care.”

 

Prior to implementing Sisense, the team at Gerimedica knew that current multidisciplinary electronic medical records (EMRs) were falling short on delivering impactful insights — Gerimedica’s included. Customers were wasting time digging for insights from exported reports, and the product’s current dashboards were proving inadequate.

In search of a solution that would empower end users and improve levels of care whilst being profitable, Gerimedica turned to its partner Sisense. It needed a BI platform that was on-premise, easy to use, secure, and could support a mountain of constantly expanding data.

With 295 tables, 2,500 columns, and nearly 1 billion records, Sisense’s solution was quickly singled out as the best option for mashing up disparate data, automating the ETL process, and simultaneously providing an intuitive, self-service user experience for healthcare professionals with minimal training.

Now, customers have access to 60 customisable dashboards that answer all of the questions it used to take 400 dashboards to answer. Health professionals can drill down and filter these dashboards to find the answers they’re looking for at a glance. Even more, these dashboards are powered only by the data that matters — actionable data that helps doctors, nurses, and other health staff improve care paths for their patients.

 

Paul Scholey, Vice President of International Sales at Sisense, says, “It’s exciting to see innovative healthcare companies like Gerimedica embracing significant data-driven transformation, especially in a sector that has traditionally been a laggard to digital adoption.

“Embedding Sisense’s innovative BI solution within Gerimedica’s EHR (electronic health record) has been key to maximising each health professional’s time. Now they can now truly prioritise providing the highest quality care – care that’s fueled by data-driven insights.”

 

About Sisense

Sisense goes beyond traditional business intelligence by providing organisations with the ability to infuse analytics everywhere, embedded in both customer and employee applications and workflows. Sisense customers are breaking through the barriers of analytics adoption by going beyond the dashboard with Sisense Fusion – the highly customisable, AI-driven analytics cloud platform, that infuses intelligence at the right place and the right time, every time. More than 2,000 global companies rely on Sisense to innovate, disrupt markets and drive meaningful change in the world. Ranked as the No. 1 Business Intelligence company in terms of customer success, Sisense has also been named one of the Forbes’ Cloud 100, The World’s Best Cloud Companies, six years in a row. Visit us at www.sisense.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

 

About Gerimedica

 

Gerimedica supports healthcare professionals in delivering the best possible care. They do this by combining innovative software technology with in depth knowledge of the health care domain. Gerimedica’s EMR is known under the name “Ysis”. It is tailormade to the needs of medical practitioners in elderly care and the care for mentally disabled people. The system has been designed in order to minimize the time a professional spends at their computer screen. They have optimized the processes for finding relevant information and for reporting about care given. This enables a practitioner to spend more time on actually delivering care to patients. This is where their motto: “Focus on you profession” originates. Tens of thousands healthcare professionals working at more than 120 healthcare institutions use their software on a daily basis. Visit us at www.gerimedica.nl.

 

 

 

 

Health, Healthcare Tech, News

How has technology made health diagnostics more accessible in the last years?

How is Healthcare Becoming More Accessible with the Latest Technological Advancements?

In the past two decades, technology has fundamentally changed the way people communicate and consume media. It has also impacted us in a more intimate way by changing our outlook on health and well-being. You will surely not deny that technology has made healthcare more accessible by making it cheaper, simpler to reach, and easier to understand. Living in a time when people continue to face problems with having access to healthcare, services such as Cignpost Diagnostics strive to explore the various ways in which people can receive better healthcare with the help of technology.

Some of the Latest Technological Advancements in Healthcare Systems

Millions of people lack consistent access to healthcare across the world for various reasons. While we enjoy free care on the NHS, outside the UK many people rely on insurance – and many people under the age of 65 have no health insurance. In fact, having health insurance or not isn’t the only issue that determines whether you have access to quality medical care. Other factors, such as the region you belong to, the language you speak, and the amount of money you can afford, can limit your access to proper healthcare.

It is where technology made one of the biggest breakthroughs. Advancements in technology have improved communication, enhanced efficiency, and brought more access to patients in the form of smart diagnostic systems, drug containers with motion detectors, and many more. The implementation of electronic medical records (EMRs) in the past few years has revolutionised the way of handling patient records in healthcare systems. EMRs have made healthcare more efficient, less expensive, and more streamlined.


If you are still wondering how, then have a look at the latest healthcare facilities below that clearly show how technology has revolutionised healthcare.

 

Mobile Clinics in Smartphones

In today’s world, having a smartphone is like having a sophisticated handheld computer in your pocket. Taking advantage of this, IT companies are increasingly developing apps and mobile gadgets that can convert your phone into a portable medical device.

Apps like Tissue Analytics, which aids in wound monitoring by allowing you to photograph and send pictures of your wounds to the doctor for assessment, AliveCor, which turns your phone into a mobile ECG machine and can measure your heart’s electrical activity, or NetraLabs, which allows you to perform eye testing at home, are some of the widely recognized apps which are making healthcare more affordable and cheaper. Such apps were a great help during the time of the Covid-19 outbreak when hospitals had a significant rush for treatment and check-ups.

 

Telemedicine Facilities

A decade ago, could you have imagined consulting your doctor over the phone via call, let alone video? Surely not. But you will be surprised to hear that millions of patients have used telemedicine services in the last year.

People living in remote locations or from rural backgrounds can now talk virtually with their physicians, which spares them the cost of travel and other expenses. In fact, during the Covid pandemic, when people had to stay isolated or were unable to step out of their homes unless it was an emergency, they used telemedicine services to consult with doctors and report their daily well-being.

 

Chatbot Doctors

Do we always need a doctor to advise us about our health practices? Not really, when you have medical advice-powered artificial intelligence facilities right around the corner. Patients now only have to enter the information regarding their health activities and test reports. The AI-based systems will analyse them and reply to the patients about the probable course of action they should take or any further tests they should conduct.

These medical chatbot systems are built using AI. They will ‘learn’ over time by gathering data from various customers and patients and using it to form their knowledge base and refine their diagnoses. Such systems have enabled patients to seek medical advice with a few touches of their fingertips.

 

Language Translating Apps

Often, people who do not have very good proficiency in English face difficulty in understanding the various medical terms. Language barriers seriously affect people’s access to medical care, health services, and communication with doctors.

There are several apps in the market that are designed specifically to solve this language barrier. These apps translate the medical terms from one language to another and provide additional information that helps the patients understand them in their native tongue.

 

Conclusion

 The increasing applications of technology in the field of healthcare are not only making health services and other medical facilities – from basic check-ups to in-depth consultations with specialist doctors – easily accessible but also more affordable and flexible for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healthcare Tech, News

Making APIs in healthcare more secure

Written by Filip Verloy, Technical Evangelist EMEA, Noname Security

Demand for healthcare services continues to accelerate at pace, heightened in the last two years by the pandemic and the knock-on effect of delayed operations and treatments, all of which is challenging the NHS. Healthcare technology innovation and the digitisation of worldwide healthcare services is seen as the way to overcome many of these challenges. Consequently, the UK Government is investing in growing capabilities in areas such as AI, machine learning, and more broadly around data-driven healthcare to make it more accessible, affordable and sustainable.

However, with patients’ increasing expectations around the quality and safety of such services, and ever-growing complex regulations that demand stricter governance, this is no easy task.

 

Protecting sensitive data

While digitising services and sharing data across health systems is the way forward, personal identifiable information (PII) is incredibly sensitive, and when it comes to disclosing healthcare records, this data must be treated appropriately. Today, NHS Trusts have a multitude of medical systems sharing information within hospitals, as well as connecting to external healthcare providers. Combine this with the demand for personal health and wellbeing devices, whereby citizens have the ability to add data to their own personal health profile, and you can see how growth in health data is exploding.

However, the increase in health trackers that monitor fitness, sleep patterns, heart rate, respiration, as well as other vital signs of health status, have resulted in a fragmented view of consumer data. Additionally, acquired data can be used in a variety of ways: privately; to contribute to clinical databases; or for research. This not only introduces additional complexity in data aggregation but also in how data is accessed, stored and secured.

Interoperability is the key and has become the watchword as the industry coordinates care for patients across a large and growing subset of players. This is where Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have become a critical component, allowing systems to communicate with each other, closing the gap on how information is utilised. The philosophy being that all systems are integrated, work together in a compliant way, and any sensitive data is secure, in the event of a breach.

 

Challenges include custom-built APIs and siloed technologies

Unfortunately, due to a multitude of technological gaps, this is not always the case. Likewise, there has been a lack of data standards across the sector and multiple siloed technologies. This means custom APIs must be created to accommodate the needs of the service it is providing for each system, which is time-consuming because API management is onerous as systems are upgraded and replaced.

As a result, the number and complexity of APIs continues to grow. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that APIs will become the most common attack vector in 2022. According to 451 Research’s 2022 API Security Trends Report, 41% of the organisations represented by survey respondents had an API security incident in the last 12 months; 63% of those noted that the incident involved a data breach or data loss.

The good news is that today there are several global open healthcare standards; Health Level Seven (HL7®), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM®). FHIR is an API-focused standard used to represent how healthcare information can be exchanged between different systems regardless of how it is stored in those systems. HL7 is a set of international standards for the transfer of clinical and administrative data between software applications used by various healthcare providers. DICOM is the standard for the communication and management of medical imaging information and related data. All of these standards help to ensure data privacy and security within strict healthcare and compliance boundaries.

 

Updates to FHIR help to facilitate interoperability with legacy systems

The most recent version of FHIR builds on previous data format standards from HL7, but it is easier to implement as it uses a modern web-based suite of API technology. One of its goals is to facilitate interoperability between legacy healthcare systems, to make it easier to share healthcare information across a wide variety of devices. This allows third-party application developers to provide medical applications which can be easily integrated into existing systems.

This addresses another important challenge across the sector, whereby many organisations are still using older technology that is not API-enabled. It is imperative that the industry moves away from local-only installed on-premises environments to more of a cloud-based model, where the health tech industry can enable APIs. Public cloud providers, such as Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are successfully enabling healthcare organisations to rapidly build healthcare solutions in the cloud, transforming the old way of working, enabling easy and standardised data exchange between healthcare applications and solutions. This has allowed data sitting in legacy systems to be utilised by healthcare professionals. It enables highly scalable, enterprise-grade development environments for building clinical and analytics solutions securely in the cloud.

That said, the transition from on-premises to the cloud won’t ever involve the entire healthcare sector. There are many stringent regulatory requirements that mean that PII data must be kept on certain systems or that some legacy systems are just not viable from a cost perspective to migrate from on-premises.

 

API security has become a priority

What this does mean is that API security has emerged as a key priority for protecting vital healthcare systems. However, it is also an area where many companies lack expertise. API security testing in healthcare is challenging because, as we know, organisations are required to work in a confined box and a heavily regulated environment.

This means everything has to be thoroughly tested with strict controls in place. Questions need to be asked around what data is being exposed, and what the healthcare provider is planning to do with the data. Of course, the provider is dealing with the same type of technical challenges every enterprise faces, but the impact is much more severe because of the sensitivity of the data, the fines involved, but most importantly the impact this might have on someone’s health.

 

Understanding the use case for the API informs the testing

As requirements for health data grow, providers must prioritise API security and data privacy to prevent threat actors from easily manipulating APIs. This is where discovery is imperative and finding specific datatypes in API requests and responses is critical to understand what type of data is being transferred, how this is being done, and whether the process is authenticated and secure. Providers also need to understand whether the appropriate API testing is being carried out as the use-case for the API informs the testing.

Healthcare organisations must maintain accurate API inventories and ensure authentication is in place. Inventories should go well beyond a count of APIs and should start to include security characteristics of APIs, notably which APIs return sensitive data. Security teams should also conduct testing in systems with protected health information (PHI). To be effective such testing should include collaboration between AppSec and DevOps teams, integrating testing capabilities in developer tools in as frictionless way as possible. Likewise, organisations should prioritise patching systems quickly to avoid exploitation.

 

New advancements in healthcare technology will drive more data points

The UK government has committed to building 48 new hospitals by 2030 and to drive transformation and new advancements in healthcare technology. Interoperability, with all data accessible from one place in real-time, is central to achieving these transformation goals, delivering more facts per patient per decision. To put this into context, in 1980 a healthcare professional had about 10 facts per patient per decision, in 2020 this rose to about 1,000 facts per patient per decision. APIs will be critical to delivering the interoperability that will power this data-driven decision-making, but more importantly, API security will be key to keeping patient data safe.

Care, Healthcare Tech, Midlands News, News

Shrewsbury care home pilots new digital health technology

Residents at a Shrewsbury care home have become some of the first in Shropshire to benefit from the use of cutting-edge digital healthcare technologies as part of a major new project being rolled out by the NHS.

Montgomery House in Sundorne has been working in partnership with neighbouring GP surgery Severn Fields Medical Practice since January to trial an advanced digital remote patient-monitoring system called DOC@HOME® and already care home managers and doctors say they are seeing hugely positive results.

It works in such a way that care staff monitoring the ongoing health of residents can log their observations electronically through the system and the data is shared directly in real-time with clinicians at Severn Fields.

Rhea Paller, manager of Mongomery House, which is operated by not-for-profit care provider, Coverage Care Services, said: “The digital system which we are piloting is fantastic and is certainly enabling us to deliver better care to our residents.

“Its cutting-edge capabilities allow for more speedy medical intervention as soon as it’s required, whether that be reviewed by the clinician remotely and advice given for the residents based on the data received or determining whether it might be necessary for a GP to visit the home to make a more in depth, in person assessment.

“The benefits of being able to enter clinical information not only for immediate requests, but also as part of weekly GP rounds, and monthly clinical observations are proving to be effective to all parties.

“The system helps us track the general health of all our residents much more closely and accurately enabling GPs to make more informed and proactive decisions about the health of those we look after.

“For our staff, the technology is saving them time and means they don’t have to spend long periods waiting to speak to a GP and can use their time more effectively and efficiently caring for residents.”

Elaine Barnett, operations manager for Severn Fields, added that the DOC@HOME system had the capabilities to transform the delivery of care within care homes and so far the trial was proving very successful.

“Care home staff can share their observations speedily with the practice which means that if a carer notices that a resident is unwell, we can intervene almost immediately and determine the best course of action.

“It’s already helping to improve the communication between our practice and the care home, is saving our GPs time and is building on the already fantastic partnership we have with staff at Montogomery House.”

The pilot project is set to run throughout 2022 and into 2023 with the possibility of the technology being extended for use across more homes in the county including several operated by Coverage Care Services.

The project is being funded by NHS Digital as it looks to improve and optimise its responsiveness to the level of care provided within care home settings.

Dr Stephen James, chief clinical information officer for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group said: “This is a good example of where technology can enable new ways of working. It allows the collection and sharing of information which enhances the decision-making process in a very positive way.

“Those directly involved have already seen benefits in terms of both communication and time management. As this way of working becomes more widely used across our local health and care system there will be significant improvements in quality and outcomes for care home residents, which will impact the individuals, their families and the wider population.”

Rebecca Gallimore, director of digital transformation for Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and digital lead for the Shropshire Telford and Wrekin ICS, said:  “This nationally funded project is a key part of both the NHS digital road map and of Shropshire Telford and Wrekin’s digital health and care strategy.

“Such approaches can support services to adapt, change and thrive in a digital world, bringing the lessons learned from the pandemic into mainstream use. They will be central to how we rebuild and remobilise the health and social care system after the effects of the COVID pandemic.

“The project can support delivering care to patients within the comfort and safety of their own homes, including care homes. This will use the right remote monitoring approach, which takes into consideration the preferences and capabilities of residents and patients to manage their digitally enabled care in the home.

“Studies to date have shown how this can contribute to increased self-management, improved resource efficiency and reduced health inequalities and patients report feeling supported and reassured by the services using these methods.”

Karen Middlemas from NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit said a similar pilot scheme was underway in the Telford & Wrekin local authority area and that discussions were ongoing with a number of other care providers and GP practices about extending use of the technology more widely across the Shropshire area.

The DOC@HOME technology being used at Montogomery House is being provided in partnership with Docobo – a UK leader in the field of digital health and data management systems.

Adrian Flowerday, the managing director of Docobo said: “We have really enjoyed working on this project – the team worked really hard, and the results and benefits speak for themselves: saving time for both care home staff and GPs. We look forward to working with the team in the future.”

Coverage Care Services is Shropshire’s largest independent, not-for-profit care provider and has homes located in Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Bridgnorth, Telford, Newport, Market Drayton and Bishops Castle.

Healthcare, Healthcare Tech, News

Interoperability and basic data are key to future of Smart Hospitals

Written by Prahlad Koti, Senior Partner, Netcompany

In June 2021, the UK government announced a plan to transform how data is used across the health and care sectors. The goal is to give patients control of their health data and enable staff to save more lives through improved care and treatment.

One aspect of this strategy is the development of Smart Hospitals, which will use digital interoperability to redesign traditional hospital processes, systems, and infrastructures. The NHS is currently being urged to invest in Smart Hospitals – both when building new hospitals, and when upgrading existing facilities with smart infrastructure.

 

Sharing patient records

Central to the vision of a Smart Hospital is enabling patient records to be shared between systems to allow for faster, more specialised treatment. However, healthcare has always struggled with the integration and interoperability of its systems and continues to do so.

For example, if I needed to look at my personal health record, there are parts of this that reside with my GP – and other parts held by hospitals I might have visited – but there is no one centralised place where I can see everything. The NHS as a whole has all of my information, but it’s not completely joined up and available to access in one place.

Here at Netcompany, our view is that it’s not possible for a hospital to be Smart unless systems are interoperable. And in order to achieve that interoperability and modernisation, we need reliable sources of data. There needs to be an investment in basic or registry data, whether that’s patient records, available appointments, or any kinds of information which should be accurate and accessible.  What I mean by this is fundamental data that is common for many purposes such as addresses, date of birth, National Insurance numbers etc.  Establishing a common basic data infrastructure for NHS administration, which can be updated in one place, is of huge societal benefit.  It means that the public no longer has to re-type the same information every time they use any kind of self-service solution or talk to a healthcare provider, and in turn it makes for a smoother transition for NHS employees to work more efficiently.

 

Siloed departments lead to siloes of data

The ongoing challenge is that often the health service is inward looking, operationally, where hospitals and healthcare facilities are divided up into different departments. This department-led approach often leads to siloes of data and doesn’t put the patient at the centre. We need to change that.

So, when we say integration, and when we say new systems, everything must be oriented towards what the citizens need. As an example, Netcompany has created a portal in Denmark where citizens can see their health records in their entirety, and all of their interactions with healthcare professionals in a single window. If they can do it, why can’t the UK?

 

Virtual wards

Related to this question of interoperability is the formation of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) across the country. ICSs bring together public bodies and healthcare service providers across geographic regions, with the aim of centralising health and care to better meet the needs of patients. They will come into effect as statutory legal bodies in July 2022.

Having at least minimum ICS-level interoperability where people can move from a GP to a hospital, or from a community hospital to an acute secondary care hospital, will ensure having all of the patient information available across that journey.

It is important to acknowledge, too, the delays to key healthcare services following the pandemic – the government estimates it could take three to four years to ease the backlog of elective procedures and other routine treatments. So, we need to think of mechanisms by which we can reduce the burden on healthcare. One initiative is virtual wards that allow patients to get the care they need at home, rather than being in hospital.

Virtual wards are already in place in many parts of the country, including Covid virtual wards. In a virtual ward, support can include remote monitoring using apps, technology platforms, wearables and medical devices such as pulse oximeters. Readings are taken and all that patient’s data is fed into a virtual ward in the hospital, where clinicians, doctors and nurses can look at that information and make a judgement as to their continued care.

It’s no longer the case that an at-home patient is ‘out of sight out of mind’.  Remote Patient Monitoring, Telecare and Virtual wards all have a role to play.  At the same time, they can reduce the operational burden on the hospital, and they can use their resources for providing other services to reduce the backlog.

 

The time is now

If the past couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that we can’t ever be sure what’s around the corner. We don’t know whether we will have another Covid variant in the autumn, or a more impactful ‘flu season as the world opens up to more mixing.

That means this is the moment to start putting these initiatives in place. We see the NHS moving in the right direction. But we could – and need to – go faster.