Integration: Delivery
Get to the stuff that really matters – allowing you to give advice that will help patients.
How can Aire Logic help?
To support your delivery of an efficient strategy, or specific project, Aire Logic provides an agile methodology to ensure your IT solutions are the right fit for your customers to deliver efficient patient care. We provide an expert team who are highly experienced working at a national level delivering projects such as APIM, and equally at home in a hospital team working across all the key Trust Integration Engines. Our team can consist of Business Analysts, developers, workflow analysis from data engineers, use case design and change management where required.
Leveraging our unmatched experience within the healthcare industry, we ensure that the clinical and business benefits within your integration strategy, or your specific project integration needs are realised using tangible metrics.
Combined with our technical architecture expertise, business transformation and deep knowledge of NHS integration (both HL7 and FHIR) and interoperability we provide an end to end service. This means we can minimise disruption, remove inefficiencies and implement successful changes rapidly.
I know I’m more prepared for a patient when they walk through the door, and am making better use of my time in the appointment because I don’t have to spend so much of it on symptom reporting. I can get to the stuff that really matters – giving advice that will help my patient.
Dave Magson
Clinical Lead for Community Dietetics
Leeds Community Healthcare
Benefits
- Full access to an expert team that delivers NHS England National Projects
- Single point of call for all aspects of project delivery if required
- Seamless interoperability delivered as a blended part of your team
- Leveraging unparalleled healthcare industry expertise and experience
- Improved levels of change acceptance and uptake by staff and system users
- An employee owned business ready to help at Trust level
- Confidence in measurable outcomes
Making Communication easier in NHSE
What we were asked to do
The NHS Interoperability (IOPs) team were developing FHIR UK Core, which would lead to a common approach for standards being taken across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and asked Aire Logic to provide FHIR Subject Matter Experts and delivery support to the IOPs programme.
In addition to the development work a governance structure was required which involved internal and external stakeholder support programmes, alongside FHIR technical modelling, Aire Logic played a key part in the establishment of this as part of our work within IOPs.
The approach we took
Aire Logic worked as part of the blended team with NHS England (NHSE) to construct a clinical and technical assurance process for developing the UK Core, relevant stakeholders were consulted such as Health Level Seven (HL7 UK). Alongside this, we worked with NHSE interoperability leads to align and influence emerging national strategy.
We also initiated discovery work on a set of frameworks for common areas of clinical functionality including workflow, querying information and structured data capture.
The frameworks were developed in line with healthcare interoperability standards. During exploration various standards including FHIR and IHE XDS were considered, to ensure the best option was chosen for the long term.
The outcomes delivered
As a result of this work, the governance for UK Core was created and during several development sprints the first release of UK Core was delivered, with the second release made available in May 2024. This had been through the full development process and close scrutiny by stakeholders such as the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB), HL7 UK and system suppliers.
A candidate strategy for interoperability was also developed with key common areas identified as well as demonstrations of the solution to them.
In addition to the development of the UK Core the team have also enabled the development of 20+ FHIR based APIs through the production of FHIR implementation guidance and design and assurance support which includes Electronic Prescription Service APIs, the Booking and Referral Standard, Genomics Order Management API, amongst others.
Delivered change
The UK Core provides a solid foundation for delivering interoperability standards combined with a strategy for building common solutions for interoperability problems moving forwards. Through this work, IOPS cemented their position as thought leaders for Interoperability within NHSE.
The work we delivered for the FHIR UK Core will enable consistent information flows across borders to improve health and care outcomes for all citizens.
GP Connect - Taking Interoperability National
What we were asked to do
GP Connect aims to support better clinical care by opening up information and data held within GP Practice IT systems for use across health and social care. The GP Connect vision will be achieved by standardising integration and simplifying the operating model.
It makes patient information available to all clinicians involved in the direct care of a patient when and where they need it, leading to improvements in both patient care and outcomes. Additionally it provides a suite of technical standards that system suppliers can develop and offer to their customers in their own familiar system.
The approach we took
Aire Logic provided a multidisciplinary team of technical, data and product delivery experts to ensure NHS England (NHSE) successfully delivered a national scale interoperability programme, GP Connect.
The two main objectives identified by NHSE as part of this work were:
- To improve interoperability within and with primary care, through the creation and delivery of technical standards.
- To increase the number of clinical systems able to interoperate with the GP Clinical Systems, thus improving the market place, increasing innovation, driving down costs and improving patient care.
The fundamental challenge was to improve the sharing of patient data between the different care settings and clinical systems that are involved in patient care from primary care to acute.
Aire Logic collaborated with suppliers to identify and create suitable Interoperability standards that would support frictionless sharing of information within Primary Care.
The standard used was Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) based, meaning a supplier would only need to implement a specification once to begin sharing information with other GP System Suppliers ensuring better, more consistent, integration.
We used an interactive approach and regularly updated our technical specifications, working with multiple stakeholders such as the British Medical Association (BMA), InterOpen and the ICO to ensure our standards were clinically safe while also being compliant with Information Government regulations.
The outcomes delivered
The scale of the impact delivered by GP Connect cannot be underestimated as it has improved patient care and operational processes significantly.
Aire Logic’s Technical Architecture expertise and delivery as part of GP Connect resulted in 98% of GPs using a standard API for appointment management, resulting in significant time and cost savings nationally, while ensuring future development can be built to a well-established standard, removing the need to update and develop using multiple APIs.
As a result, over 6 million appointments booked and 82% of GP Practises have been enabled to share documents more easily between care pathways.
Of GPs using a standard API for appointment management
Appointments booked