NEWS - 08 March 2010
InferMed signs multi-year contract with NHS Direct England to provide new generation of Arezzo-based online patient self-assessment tools
InferMed Limited has been awarded a five year contract to provide active and personalised decision support tools to enhance England's NHS Direct web and digital services for people in England. This important contract marks the second national rollout of InferMed's Arezzo technology to help improve patient care while reducing the cost of providing that care.
NHS Direct is predominantly recognised as a telephone health information and advice service but users will be able to bypass the telephone assessment by using the newly enhanced online services. NHS Direct's new self help guides and online assessments will make it quicker and easier for users to obtain information and advice and give patients a choice about how they contact NHS Direct. The new suite of online clinical assessments will be available beginning in summer 2010 with a further more complete range of topics added through the remainder of the year.
The IT consortium, led by InferMed Limited and including Rackspace ®Hosting, Eduserv and Sitecore CMS, will provide a new platform for the delivery of online assessments, providing additional services for the 50 million NHS patients in England who will have access to these new core NHS Direct services through the internet every day. These services will be syndicated to NHS Choices, Directgov and a number of consumer health sites in order to achieve maximum reach.
Duane Lawrence, CEO of InferMed Limited commented further: "NHS Direct has made an important strategic decision to lead the world in online clinical services. InferMed is pleased to be a part of this world class consortium to provide such powerful tools designed to help NHS patients get the personalised health information they need to take further charge of their own care."
Matthew Garrood, Associate Director of (NHS Direct) Multi Channel says: "This is a strategically important project for NHS Direct and we are delighted to be working with these world class service providers to lay a foundation for the future of digital remote care. These online assessments are going to provide a long overdue service that will change the way people interact with the National Health Service. Initially the service will be available via the web, but as time progresses these services will be available on multiple channels from mobile devices to IPTV and games consoles."
The existing online assessment, available at www.nhs.uk/nhsdirect, provides information and advice to users on a wide variety of symptoms and conditions. Where appropriate, it gives people advice on how to treat their symptoms at home or, if necessary, refers them to another part of the NHS. Those who need further advice can click to get a call-back and, in certain cases, web chat from an NHS Direct nurse advisor. In addition NHS Direct provides a number of online symptom checkers on mental health, men's sexual health, contraception and colds and flu. Existing tools will be enhanced using the advanced Arezzo decision support technology to give patients a more advanced personalised experience in time adding services such as links to other medical web sites and forums. Making NHS Direct easier to contact is key to helping ease the pressure on those services in high demand, such as the Ambulance Services, A&E departments and GP surgeries helping to lower the cost of providing high quality care.
To read the announcement on the NHS Direct website, please click on the following link
About the Consortium
InferMed Limited
Since 1999, InferMed has developed and provided trusted software and services to support best practice in medicine. Through its MACRO EDC application and Arezzo® decision support technology, patients receive safe, up-to-date medical treatment based on best available clinical evidence. InferMed solutions tame the ever-increasing volume and complexity of clinical information transforming it into personalised actionable knowledge, made available at the point of care to clinicians in research and practice and, to patients in their homes. Our advanced technology solutions have been implemented for thousands of users across Europe, North America and Australasia.
Rackspace® Hosting is the world's leader in hosting and cloud computing and has been ranked in Financial Times Top 50 Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom for the past five years. Rackspace provides its customers with Fanatical Support ® by delivering a portfolio of hosted IT services, including Managed Hosting, Cloud Hosting and Email and Apps.
Eduserv is dedicated to developing and delivering technology services
for education and the public sector. We are a not-for-profit organisation
and registered charity, governed by a board of Trustees. We fulfil our
charitable mission by providing IT services for the public benefit. These
include hosting, web content management and development.
Sitecore's award-winning Web Content Management System (CMS) enables organisations to easily create rich, interactive web experiences for virtually any need. Combined with the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite, with its integrated web analytics and marketing automation, the Sitecore CMS helps organisations achieve breakthrough online strategies with measureable ROIs for long-term business growth.
Thousands of public and private organisations, including national governments, FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, utilise Sitecore solutions for their websites. These organisations have created and now manage more than 23,000 dynamic websites with Sitecore including Microsoft, Lloyds of London, Universal Music, DVLA, Experian, WebTrends, Manchester United, Conservative Party, Manchester City, The Science Museum, and Bristol International Airport.
About NHS Direct
NHS Direct's aim is to provide people with expert health advice, information and reassurance to care for themselves at home or to access appropriate healthcare, using world class web and telephone services. The online assessments mirror the clinical assessment criteria currently used by telephone advisors, allowing patients quick and direct access to advice on the web based service. The NHS Direct website (www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk) receives around 1.5 million visits each month.
NHS Direct health information and advice line handles over 14,000 calls a day. That's over 5 million calls a year. NHS Direct employs over 3,400 staff, over 1,300 of whom are trained nurses.
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