...their installed systems using the Ascribe Health Application Platform to deliver their EPR

Like many of Ascribe’s customers, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (“UHS”) uses a number of Ascribe “best of breed” applications. The Trust has achieved good results over the years in departments where these solutions are installed, for example, Ascribe has enabled some clinical areas to go paperless.

UHS has enjoyed a high level of clinical engagement in their IT projects and have a record of success in delivering to their clinicians. The partnership with Ascribe gives UHS access to both Ascribe’s integration skills and the Ascribe Health Application Platform (“HAP”). This combination now gives UHS the capability of completing an Electronic Patient Record (“EPR”) with a common clinical data repository allowing the Trust to build intelligent care pathways across their organisation with complex decision support capabilities, and then analyse the data produced to improve clinical outcomes using Business Intelligence “BI” solutions.

Adrian Byrne Director of IT UHS said “We are migrating the existing solution set to a more open framework that will allow the future build of a full EPR around a clinical data repository. The move ensures no loss of investment already made.”

The partnership also allows for a number of clinical departmental modules developed with UHS over the years to be integrated as “apps” on the platform which will then be made available to the wider market. This will complete an exercise Ascribe started around two years ago to integrate all of their applications using their Health Application Platform to deliver a modular enterprise-wide EPR. Over fifty NHS customers are now using clinical solutions implemented on this platform.

Stephen Critchlow, CEO of Ascribe states, “Ascribe’s orders are up twenty-seven percent compared with this time last year and we believe this is because we have the appropriate offering for the NHS in the current climate. We are able to offer incremental upgrades for our customers to deliver specific cost and quality benefits without the need to make radical change to their installed systems with the end result being a complete enterprise wide EPR on a common platform.”

Users will benefit from a consistent set of configuration tools, that help to reduce training overheads and enable teams to perform local configurations much more quickly and cost-effectively. The flexibility of the platform enables third party clinical systems to be integrated with existing and new modular solutions, from both Ascribe and third parties, ensuring that their investment is future-proofed.

Patients will benefit directly as their episodic data is collated through a secure Clinical Data Repository to enable richer analysis and provide clinicians with data that will help them make more informed care pathway decisions.

Clinical risks are reduced when patient’s data is no longer trapped inside isolated applications. Ascribe’s HAP enables new workflows that speed up care analysis and provision, delivering a means to access clinical information from both Ascribe and third party IT solutions. This approach contributes to the Trust’s Strategic 2020 Vision and focus on improving quality; UHS is committed to providing excellence in healthcare, delivering value for taxpayers and ensuring excellent clinical outcomes.

Ascribe’s clinical technology has been operating successfully as major departmental systems at UHS for several years, including their PAS, Emergency Care and Electronic Patient Record (“EPR”) solution. Ascribe’s range of clinical solutions are already used concurrently by thousands of clinicians at UHS, and include Doctors Work List, Order Communications, Clinical Documents, Surgical Operations, Electronic Discharge Summaries, Endoscopy, Diabetes, Oncology and Maternity.

Ascribe believes that the HAP provides a strategic solution to the latest calls for innovation and service transformation outlined in The NHS England 2013-2014 business plan, ‘Putting Patients First’. The plan calls for cultural change and innovation to transform the way the NHS delivers high quality service at a time of enduring financial pressures.

“Our partnership with UHS is based upon a shared conviction that care outcomes can be improved when clinicians have access to all the information that they require”, said Stephen Critchlow, CEO of Ascribe.