Because the NHS kicks off the vacation season with a junior medical doctors’ strike, many well being service workers and suppliers are taking a look at 2024 with trepidation. Not Nervecentre.
The UK digital affected person report (EPR) supplier has had a rollicking finish to 2023, with three NHS trusts – College Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB), Chesterfield Royal Hospital (CRH) and Northampton Basic Hospital – selecting Nervecentre as their most popular EPR provider previously two months alone.
In October, Eire’s well being service selected the corporate to supply software program for acute ground companies for unscheduled and emergency care.
In an interview with Digital Well being Information, Nervecentre chief government Paul Volkaerts mentioned he’s optimistic in regards to the firm’s possibilities to broaden its remit, with extra trusts set to undergo the method of selecting a most popular EPR supplier within the first two months of 2024.
“We appear to have actually good timing, which is a tough factor to attain in enterprise,” he mentioned. “We’re hitting the frontline digitalisation procurement course of at some extent after we are a viable possibility. For a very long time there was a niche out there for an EPR that’s usable, targeted on the NHS and hits the best value level.”
Nervecentre has spent 15 years constructing its EPR and doesn’t underestimate the challenges for suppliers out there, Volkaerts says, including that it has taken that period of time to “hit the maturity of our breadth of options”.
Regardless of the well being service’s fixed funding woes, he believes decisionmakers within the authorities and NHS England realise that digitalisation should stay a high precedence. And he stays satisfied that Nervecentre’s laser give attention to designing a system for the UK well being service has given it an edge over different opponents within the EPR house.
“The NHS is essentially completely different from US hospitals and the processes within the hospitals differ,” he mentioned, noting that the US system is extra targeted on billing, and has much less developed methods of digital prescribing.
Noting that the Irish well being service contract was Nervecentre’s first outdoors the UK, Volkaerts mentioned the corporate is finally fascinated about increasing additional; though it has round “half a dozen territories” that it thinks may very well be fertile floor for its enterprise, the US is prone to be farther down the checklist.
Creating hyperlinks throughout areas
Nervecentre’s most up-to-date EPR wins are targeted within the East Midlands, the place College Hospitals Leicester (UHL) is already the principle growth associate for its next-generation EPR system. At UHDB and CHR, the corporate shall be supplying a joint EPR system for each trusts.
“Our want is to deal with the healthcare challenges throughout areas,” Volkaerts mentioned. “There is a chance to create a area that has seamless affected person knowledge throughout it. We have now introduced a few wins and there are extra to come back.”
In the end, he added, transformation of the NHS will contain the flexibility to consolidate companies and pair exercise throughout areas the place it is smart to take action. The method additionally offers trusts an opportunity to have a look at the fee base for the way they’re providing companies, however shall be more difficult the place there are completely different EPRs working throughout a area, he mentioned.
One other problem going through EPR suppliers entails sources.
“There are many trusts going by means of a digitisation journey at precisely the identical time, and that can trigger resourcing challenges for everybody,” Volkaerts factors out. “However it will be important that all of them get to a degree of digital maturity as quickly as attainable and I don’t suppose it is smart to tier that course of.”
For trusts making an attempt to digitise in an surroundings that’s already operating at capability, accommodating staffing wants will create additional complexity, he says.
Whereas many trusts desire to step down exercise ranges at hospitals to accommodate the digital transformation course of, this shall be troublesome to do with current pressures, making the usability of methods particularly essential.
“You’ve got to make that journey as simple as it may be, as a result of these are robust occasions,” he says. “In regular occasions, you’ll be able to afford to take workers out for coaching to minimise disruption from the go-live.”
Because of this, Nervecentre has emphasised a progressive launch of its EPR in trusts, permitting workers to get used to a few of the performance that may produce operational advantages within the yr earlier than the go-live of all the system.