NEWS - 27 January 2011
InferMed-managed NHS Direct Health & Symptom Checker website wins prestigious excellence award
London, UK, 27 January 2011...InferMed is very proud to announce that the InferMed-managed NHS Direct website providing Arezzo-powered Health and Symptom Checkers to NHS patients in England (www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk) has won the e-Government National Award in recognition of its innovation in strategy at a national level. The website was declared the winner from a shortlist of 7 finalists at an awards ceremony in London yesterday.
The NHS Direct website was chosen as the winner in the 'eGovernment excellence: Innovation in strategy on a national level' category of the e-Government National Awards. All nominees in this category were recognised as having 'delivered innovative strategies which demonstrated above-average results in improved services, processes and effectiveness within the transformational government agenda'.
The e-Government National Awards is the UK's most closely watched public sector technology competition, as it provides a unique benchmark of quality in eleven categories, covering current IT innovation and best practice technology implementation at all levels of government. Covering national, local government, the NHS and the third sector, the Awards recognise initiatives that enable UK businesses and citizens to more effectively interact with the public sector institutions that serve them. The Awards event took place at the London Guildhall on January 26th 2011 and marked the seventh annual e-Government National Awards.
Duane Lawrence, CEO of InferMed Ltd, commented, "To be nominated for this award for excellence was already an achievement for NHS Direct and the InferMed-led consortium that delivered the NHS Direct Online Health & Symptom Checker website. To win the award in a category alongside other such superb nominees is a true recognition of the quality of the online service and the work that has gone into delivering it. Our goal has been to deliver real and effective change to the way patients interact with the NHS, so for this work to be commended in this well recognised governmental awards scheme is a great testament to NHS Direct's vision, and the entire team's excellent planning and ability to execute effectively."
The NHS Direct online patient self-assessment service, available at www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk, 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 and refers them to another part of the NHS if necessary. Those who need further advice can enter their phone number to receive a call back from an NHS Direct nurse, or in some cases can even web chat with NHS Direct. The health and symptom checkers were used over 700,000 times in December 2010 and, for the first time, overtook the telephone service over the busy two week Christmas period.
For more details on the launch of the service please see this news item on the InferMed website.
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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. Its advanced technology solutions have been implemented
for over a million users across Europe, North America and Australasia.
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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