GP IT software company EMIS has launched its plans for its next phase of clinical technology, which includes video consultations and clinical triage.
From this week, EMIS customers will be able to attend video consultations via the Patient Access app.
Patients can also access an online triage service, which can answer pressing questions they may have about certain symptoms and point them in the right direction.
In addition, EMIS has launched the next iteration of its web platform.
Known as EMIS-X, the cloud-based platform aims to create an ecosystem that supports NHS Digital interoperability standards, where applications are allowed to share selective live data with others.
The platform has been built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and means different healthcare teams can be linked seamlessly.
EMIS’s new group chief technology officer, Pete Malcolm, compared healthcare systems to ‘islands’.
He told Digital Health News: “We have a lot of islands not joining up which can cause efficiencies and clinical risk.
“We want to join these things up, not get rid of the islands, but live with them and make sure they can collectively share data.”
Malcolm confirmed that the switch from EMIS Web to EMIS-X will not involve a “big bang” as the new platform has a modular design.
He added that there would be “no sudden retraining of GPs” required.
On the subject of implementation, EMIS group CEO, Andy Thorburn, said the company wanted to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible.
He said: “We want to build a reputation of clinical excellence and we want to get it right the first time.”
Thorburn accepted that “things go wrong”, but added he wanted to make sure EMIS “exceeds expectations”.
On the subject of the new health secretary, Matt Hancock, who visited EMIS’s offices earlier this year, Thorburn said he has been “very straight forward” and “very clear” about what he wanted to happen.
EMIS recently announced a £2.5 million acquisition of Dovetail Lab, a UK business specialising in the use of blockchain in healthcare.
11 December 2018 @ 10:43
Can someone tell me about the PROCESS of which this technological tit-bit is a part? As presented here, it is an ‘island’ or ‘silo’. It might not be if it is part of a process where other functions take a role. I am fed up with with all the talk about ‘modern technology’ in the NHS when what is inadequate is the process design. Technology is a tool used to implement well designed processes,not the other way around.
BTW, the decision to scrap faxes might be a mistake; faxes go over telephone wires, emails the internet, the stomping ground of the malware ‘bad guys’. Wi Fo and email faxes are similarly exposed.
6 December 2018 @ 16:20
Why are we only finding out about this in the Digital press? I believe it was mentioned at the recent EMIS NUG, but as customers, communications about this approach from EMIS, has been severely lacking! Will there be a DPIA available, as this is a significant change in technology, which given the number of patient records involved, I would expect as a minimum
8 December 2018 @ 20:45
Emis is a plc it will always announce to the market before anyone else. That’s the case with any plc
4 December 2018 @ 11:19
Surprised on the lack of comments on patient data being stored in the cloud (which I presume is W Europe only so it doesn’t come under US law).
3 December 2018 @ 22:50
Great news