Informatica helps Wales track swine flu

NHS Wales is using software developed by Informatica Systems to monitor pandemic flu on a daily basis.

The Primary Care Informatics Programme’s Data Quality Service is being used to track the spread of swine flu and other potential pandemics by collating data from more than 70% of GP practices across Wales.

The service incorporates a general GP software tool, Audit+, and a central web-based tool, AuditWeb, and provides the Welsh National Public Health Service with extensive real-time data.

Simon Scourfield, deputy director for the Primary Care Informatics Programme, said: “The Data Quality Service has been a resounding success.

“After providing timely and accurate data for last year’s influenza vaccination programme, we were well positioned to cope with the demand for similar data to help tackle the current swine flu outbreak.”

Audit+ runs on the Informatica Clinical Audit Platform (iCAP), a software platform for building solutions to primary care problems that require automated general practice data extraction, clinical decision support tools and centralised business intelligence capabilities.

The Data Quality Service will also enable the NPHS to track the progress of a mass vaccination programme if one is run this autumn and will be used to highlight areas for which vaccination is a priority.

Last week, Welsh government officials said that NHS frontline staff and vulnerable people would be among the first to receive the swine flu jab, which is expected to be offered in the middle of October.

Philip Brown, a joint director of Informatica Systems, said: “I am very happy that the Audit+ and AuditWeb software provided by Informatica Systems to the Data Quality Service programme has proven its worth in such a satisfactory way.

“We are currently developing a real-time pandemic monitoring and vaccination tracking service based on this proven technology.”

Link: Informatica Systems