BridgeHead VNA at forefront of North Middlesex University Hospital’s data transformation programme

The north London hospital’s Local Service Provider (LSP) contract for PACS was due to end in June 2015. In 2012, it began procurement for a new PACS, Radiology Information System (RIS) and an independent VNA through the NHS Supply Chain. Following a shortlisting to six providers, the hospital selected BridgeHead’s next generation VNA, HealthStore™. The contract was awarded in September 2014.

Soon after the award for BridgeHead’s HealthStore, the hospital decided to expand the use of the VNA to act as the repository for its ambitious EDMS project, which will scan all patient notes and provide electronic access for clinicians. The trust’s own internally developed clinical portal will also interface into the VNA, providing mobile and fixed access to patient notes at the point of need.

Eddie Webb, North Middlesex University Hospital’s head of IT, comments: “Initially, we just wanted a VNA for PACS; but the hospital was going through a transformation programme looking at how we use data and who requires access to that data. The ending of our PACS LSP presented us with an opportunity to rethink our data management strategy; and consider a VNA independent from PACS and RIS that was truly application agnostic and could scale across the hospital to manage all data types, not just medical images. Now we have HealthStore™, in five years’ time, when we may look at PACS again, or any other application refresh, we will not be tied to any specific vendor – our data will be stored centrally and available to any application we choose and data migration will be significantly easier.”

Peter Hales, the hospital’s RIS and PACS manager, comments: “The ability that HealthStore™ brings to manage radiology data, as well as other relevant information across all platforms, will benefit clinicians and patients alike. Previously, patient data was stored locally to departmental machines all requiring different passwords to allow access. Now, with the correct identity policies in place, clinicians can recall all information pertinent to the patient. It is much faster and, therefore, provides greater efficiency and better levels of patient care.”

To deliver Hunt’s mandated digital vision and also deliver the Better Care Fund plan, the hospital wanted to consider data holistically across the organisation. It began looking at how to build an ecosystem whereby 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.

Musadiq Subar, the hospital’s IT programme manager and clinical technical architect, comments: “Our VNA approach has the capability to push data from source to the applications and/or individuals that need it, when they need it.”

“Jeremy Hunt has mandated that hospitals are digital by 2018; at North Mid we aim to achieve this earlier in 2016/17 using our electronic document management system. 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. BridgeHead has excellent clinical and healthcare experience and demonstrated the applicability of their next generation VNA, HealthStore™, to this.”

“For applications like EDMS that include patient history, notes, diagnostics and more it is paramount that patient information is available at all times.”

The hospital is now actively working with third party care, primary care and secondary care providers and mental health agencies to understand what data they need and how they can access it.

Musadiq continues: “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. 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.”

Jim Beagle, CEO of BridgeHead Software comments: “The North Middlesex University Hospital team involved in this project are true visionaries; they should be commended on having the confidence to take a long-term and strategic approach to their data management.

“We have long championed VNA as the enterprise-wide repository that can be deployed in an evolutionary manner starting with one department like radiology and rapidly extending to all types of data and applications – as with the hospital’s EDMS initiative.

“This is an exciting project for BridgeHead and we are working with some very talented people. I look forward to seeing it continue to evolve and expand.”

The VNA is being delivered as part of a five year managed service; the key drivers being that the VNA is a new technology to the trust and they wanted to ensure that the IT team could focus on strategic delivery and not solely on system management.