Hyland’s UK Healthcare User Forum promotes interoperability and innovation
Last month, we held our inaugural Hyland Healthcare Forum in the United Kingdom. We’ve had such success with these events in the U.S., we were excited to replicate them across the pond.
I was happy to see how well everything turned out. The forum provided a great opportunity for our customers to network with one another as well as engage with experts to get answers to their most pressing health IT-related questions.
Here are some highlights of experts discussing the latest healthcare topics.
Interoperable patient record delivers big benefits
The agenda kicked off with Adrian Byrne, chief information officer from University Hospital Southampton. Byrne talked about how policy and technology advances enable UHS to develop award-winning innovations with other NHS Trusts to deliver digital healthcare solutions quicker and more cost-effectively.
Byrne covered how UHS implemented an interoperable patient health record that eliminates data silos and allows information to flow freely between organisations and care teams. Byrne believes open technology is crucial to interoperability.
“You won’t win a customer unless you are interoperable with other suppliers,” said Byrne.
This is a philosophy Hyland lives by.
Before
Byrne also highlighted The Open PHR during his session. The concept is simple: a unified platform comprised of many applications to present one patient-owned record. The applications span healthcare aspects like lab results, prescription, hospital and GP records, and even wearable technology. Patients can log into one portal to view all their health information in a single place.
Finally, Byrne shared some powerful “before and after” photos of a warehouse UHS once used for patient record storage. By implementing an electronic document management system, UHS was able to digitise these paper records and save the £1.3M a year it previously cost to run the building.
Not only that, but staff members can now instantly access data previously stored on all that paper and make more-informed decisions.
Continuity of care vital to both providers and patients
After
Next, we heard from John Rayner, the regional director of HIMSS Analytics. Rayner shared highlights of the organisation’s Continuity of Care Maturity Model (CCMM).
This eight-stage model demonstrates the evolution of communication in healthcare. The CCMM goes beyond the electronic medical record adoption model (EMRAM) maturity model to help organisations assess their entire healthcare systems.
In fact, Rayner’s insights showed that hospitals are not always at the center of the healthcare ecosystem. Clinical care is delivered by several providers in a variety of locations. That’s why it’s important to look at the system as a whole and truly understand the transfer of care in order to ensure an optimal patient experience.
Rayner also shared perspectives on how continuity of care benefits both providers and patients:
- From a patient’s perspective, it’s important to have no disruption in care as he or she moves across care settings and care providers.
- From a provider’s perspective, it’s imperative to align and coordinate healthcare resources across care settings to deliver the best healthcare services and value possible for the patient.
Technology and the NHS Long Term Plan
The next panel was comprised of Byrne, Tim Cropley, the chief information officer at Hampshire Hospital, and Simon Hadley, the clinical imaging systems manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
This panel discussed how NHS sites address and position their organisations to support the NHS Long Term Plan. Practical challenges in the plan include items like more “out-of-hospital” care as well as more personalized care.
The panelists shared insights around how the plan has altered their strategies and application priorities. Of course, no discussion on healthcare IT would be complete without the “I” word, and there was a healthy discussion around how important interoperability is within the context of their organisation’s future plans.
Finally, the day concluded with a session by Francis Tella, Hyland Healthcare product manager. Tella discussed our current and future technology efforts, and how they align with the NHS Long Term Plan. At the end of the day, we want our customers to be positioned to respond to the changing healthcare landscape, and this was a great conversation that included customers, future customers and Hylanders discussing how to be proactive.
We were encouraged by this successful inaugural event and we can’t wait until next year’s second-annual Hyland Healthcare Forum in the UK!
