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April 2014

The IHR in UHW 

Pilot gets good early feedback in Cardiff 
 

The Individual Health Record (IHR) is now being piloted on six wards for Unscheduled Admissions in Cardiff's University Hospital Wales.

 

Early reaction to the three month pilot has been very positive with clinicians saying it saves time, not just for themselves, but for the GPs they would normally have to contact. The IHR is a summary of the patient's GP record, and allows clinicians and pharmacists to view some basic information about their patient's medical history quickly. A full evaluation will be undertaken when the pilot is complete.

 

The pilot is scheduled to be extended into Aneurin Bevan Health Board in coming weeks.

New service for newborns

Birth notifications now provided by Wales health IT 


Midwives and Child Health staff in Wales will be notifying births through a new service called the Welsh Birth Notification Service in the next few months.

 

The service will be phased in and is currently in a live pilot at Glan Clwyd Hospital in North Wales.

 

The Welsh Birth Notification Service (WBNS), a component of the Welsh Demographics Service, will replace the soon-to-be decommissioned 'NHS Numbers For Babies' service (NN4B), a joint England and Wales shared service which has been in operation since 2002. It will link to the NN4B's successor, the Personal Demographics Service to obtain a newborn's designated NHS number and streamline data processes in Wales.

 

A WBNS website has also been developed for hospitals that don't use a compatible maternity system for this process - replacing the Interim NHS Number Service (INNS) website.

 

The Personal Demographics Service forwards data for new babies to several systems including Welsh Child Health and Screening systems, such as blood spot and hearing.

LIMS now live in Aneurin Bevan
Pathology system takes root in third Welsh health board 
 
Three health boards are now live with the new all-Wales Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
 

Aneurin Bevan Health Board labs switched over to the new LIMS at the end of last month (March)for Blood Sciences and joined Cwm Taf and Hywel Dda health boards who have been using the system across their Blood Sciences (since last year) and Microbiology (Hywel Dda's department went live in 2012).

The new LIMS is the TrakCare Lab product provided by the international supplier Intersystems and was selected for use in Wales by pathology professionals as part of the all-Wales pathology modernisation programme.

Readiness activities for the new LIMS are now underway for Cardiff and Vale and Betsi Cadwaladr health boards.

Apprentices benefit from exchange scheme 

Informatics apprentices to learn from both private and public sector

 

An apprenticeship exchange scheme designed to share learning between the private and public sectors has received support from Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology, Ken Skates.

 

With seven apprentices from the NHS Wales Informatics Service and six from the IT solutions provider, Logicalis UK, the exchange scheme is providing valuable experience of   how each organisation operates, from the perspective of a private IT service provider and IT services in the NHS, as well as an insight into careers, and business skills training.

 

To date the apprentices have undertaken induction days at Logicalis' managed services centre in Nantgarw and at the NHS Wales Informatics Service, at which they learnt about IT operations and discussed with employees the different jobs required to provision and manage IT services, such as field engineering, service delivery, technical help desk, and sales. Separately, they have attended business skills and professionalism training at which the apprentices learnt email etiquette, PowerPoint presentation skills, CV writing, and interview skills.

 

The apprentices, who are working in IT and administration roles, are now being given the opportunity to shadow an employee at the opposite organisation, in order to gain hands-on experience of a career that interests them.

 

"Wales is currently experiencing a real resurgence in apprenticeships, with the number of people in work based learning the highest it's been in six years," Skates said. "This partnership between Logicalis and NHS Wales Informatics Service shows us there are very real mutual benefits when apprentices are shared between two different organisations."

 

"Competition for jobs is fierce, so the experience gained from spending time at two different organisations will prove invaluable to their future career opportunities, as well as what they can bring to their current roles," said NWIS's Wendy Dearing who spearheaded the scheme. "In the future, we hope to extend the scheme and employ a Shared Apprentice as part of the Welsh Government's education and skills initiative."

Informatics @ Events
  

NHS Wales security team shortlisted for major award

 

Information security experts from NHS Wales have been shortlisted twice for Best Security Team in the prestigious SC Magazine Awards 2014 Europe.

 

The shortlisted nominations are for:

 

- The new email gateway security measures known as the NHS Wales Data Protection Initiative 

 

- Secure File Sharing Portal - the NHS Wales Ipswitch File Transfer

 

Both initiatives are the work of virtual teams formed by staff from the NHS Wales Informatics Service and local health boards.

 

Finalists will be announced at the awards event in London on 29 April.
Informatics in numbers
Spring migration 

 

The programme of migrating GP Systems to next generation systems is progressing well.

 

So far 168 GP practices have completed migrations - 40 to EMIS Web and 128 to INPS Vision 360.

 

Once migrated, the new systems are being hosted in secure data centres by NHS Wales, and practices are given ongoing support via the NWIS GP IT Support Service.

New Informatics
Federation announced
Will help to establish informatics as a profession
 

The UK's leading health informatics organisations have announced they will be working together to form a new health informatics federation.  

 

BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, the UK Council of Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP) and the Institute of Health Records and Information Management (IHRIM) will work collaboratively in the federation which will work to ensure health informatics is recognised as a valued profession.

 

The federation will provide leadership of the overall health informatics profession with voluntary registration and single point of entry into BCS, UKCHIP and IHRIM.

 

It will oversee an agreed regulatory framework with a common code of ethical practice, and coordinate access to resources providing a unified set of capabilities for all professional areas of practice. It will be open to all other informatics professional bodies, the private sector, the home countries and lay representation.

 

To learn more, please contact NWIS Head of Workforce and Organisational Development, Wendy Dearing.

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