North Middlesex NHS Trust To Be Paperless Before 2018

The North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust has chosen a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) solution to aid its ambitions to achieve paperless targets before 2018.

The Trust is working with data and storage management firm BridgeHead Software, which is providing the organisation with its HealthStore VNA solution and Electronic Document Management System (EDMS).

Following its exit from its National Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) contracts, Middlesex chose to work with BridgeHead to build an enterprise-wide data repository to help meet its obligations, including Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s paperless NHS vision.

In 2013, Hunt challenged NHS Trusts across the UK to eliminate the use of paper by 2018 and replace it with digital and electronic alternatives.

However, we at 24N caught up with the Trust’s IT programme manager and clinical technical architect Musadiq Subar, who explained his organisation expects to be around 80% paperless by the end of 2016.

“Our VNA approach has the capability to push data from source to the applications and/or individuals that need it, when they need it,” Subar explained.

“Jeremy Hunt has mandated that hospitals are digital by 2018; at North Mid, we aim to achieve this earlier, in 2016/17 using our EDMS. For us it makes absolute sense to use our VNA alongside our EDMS.

“I have no doubts about the suitability or robustness of the system…For applications like EDMS that include patient history, notes, diagnostics and more, it is paramount that patient information is available at all times,” he added.

A Holistic Approach To Data Management

Subar told us that a holistic approach was needed, not just to work towards Hunt’s vision, but also to help the Trust deliver the Better Care Fund plan.

North Middlesex set out to build an ecosystem where all of its different stakeholders, including GPs in the longer term, could access the data they needed to achieve better quality care and enhance the patient experience.

The hospital is already actively working with third party care, primary care, secondary care and mental health agencies to understand what data is needed and how it can be accessed.

“The healthcare space is very dynamic; the integration of health and social care, the roles of clinical commissioning groups and third party care providers in the community is evolving,” Subar claimed.

“Data needs to be at the centre of our care continuum and our VNA approach to data management ensures that information about patients is available no matter where in the hospital the care is provided,” he added.

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