14. september 2010
The announcement on 9 September 2010 of the closure of the National Programme for IT will
liberate Trusts to seek local solutions to their IT needs.
As the press release (ref: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Pressreleases/DH_119293) says:
“A new approach to implementation will take a modular approach, allowing NHS organisations to introduce smaller, more manageable change, in line with their business requirements and capacity. NHS services will be the customers of a more plural system of IT embodying the core assumption of ‘connect all’, rather than ‘replace all’ systems.
The thrust of health IT strategy will move from ‘rip and replace’ mentality to, as e-Health Insider
expressed it, (ref http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/6136/judgement_day_arrives_for_cfh_and_npfit) ‘local decision making, interoperability, shared records, clinical portals, and best of breed’.
In this new environment CSAM’s Plexus Portal provides the ideal solution. It was developed by clinicians and IT staff working closely together to provide for the needs of a large, complex hospital with a wide range of specialisms. Driven by the failure of the single vendor solutions to serve the needs of such a hospital, the developers worked with the complexity of existing systems to create a straightforward means of presenting the range of information in a way to which users could immediately relate.
The Plexus Portal has been highly successful in its native Scandinavia. It addresses the demands placed on future IT systems. It provides interoperability between a Trust’s existing systems, allowing the maximum return from existing investments. Users can access and share information from all these systems through a straightforward and intuitive interface. As the Trust seeks to develop a best of breed strategy, it allows connected systems to be changed in an ordered way, without the disruption to users and with minimal retraining.
Trusts within the NHS will want to rethink their IT strategies. They will want to save by maximising the return on investment in systems they already have. They will want to avoid risky, disruptive change with its impact on the delivery of healthcare. They will look for ways to avoid the overheads of massive retraining and elaborate ‘go-live’ exercises, where staff are plunged into new and unfamiliar systems, with the adverse consequences for productivity and morale.
CSAM is looking forward to helping Trusts respond to the challenges of the new environment. We see this as a genuine opportunity to create health IT systems of the future in an evolutionary way.