Northern Care Alliance to roll out eDMS in partnership with Hyland

The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) is to roll out an electronic document management system (eDMS) in partnership with Hyland.

The system, which is planned to go live in late 2026, will replace two legacy document management systems with one, single eDMS with the aim of providing a simple way to work with patient records, helping colleagues to access information faster.

It will manage more than one million patient records across our four hospital sites and community services in Greater Manchester at Salford, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham.

Emma Wright, data readiness programme director at NCA, said: “Introducing a single eDMS is an exciting step towards the trust implementing a full electronic patient record (EPR) system in the future as we make our services digital and become more efficient.

“Our eDMS will bring together information about our patients from across the organisation, laying the foundations for the roll-out of an EPR.

“This project is all about working together, making it easier for colleagues to deliver our services by giving them better tools whilst improving patient care at the same time.”

The partnership between NCA and Hyland is based on a three-year contract, with an option to extend to five years.

The NCA will be able to access multiple solutions within Hyland’s Content Innovation Cloud platform, including OnBase, a content services platform that organises, manages and optimises content, processes and cases.

Jitesh S Ghai, chief executive of Hyland, said: “Healthcare is a field in which incremental advancements can lead to genuinely life-changing results – especially in an organisation as important to its community as the NCA.

“The NCA’s digital strategy makes it clear that sound data foundations are non-negotiable for connected patient healthcare, and Hyland is proud to become a driving force in that mission for Greater Manchester.”

The solution is hoped to enable clinicians to deliver faster, more accurate and more collaborative patient care decisions across the NCA.

Dr James Kerr, chief clinical information officer at NCA, said: “Our patients and clinicians consistently express the need for seamless access to patient information across all our hospitals.

“Patients expect that every part of the healthcare system communicates effectively to ensure they receive the best possible care.

“Clinicians rely on comprehensive and accessible records to deliver quality care. This partnership with Hyland starts to unify our systems, making patient information readily available wherever they are seen within the NCA.”

Meanwhile, in January 2025,  Salford Royal Hospital became the latest NCA site to roll out the Sectra picture archiving and communication system for reporting on diagnostic imaging.

The system enables reporters and radiologists at the trust to use a single platform to both view and report on imaging studies, rather than having to navigate separate systems to provide reports that inform patient care, diagnoses and treatment.