Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has awarded a two-year contract to data platform provider Better to support the development of a clinical repository.
The digital agency for NHS Wales is aiming to use an open platform approach and common standards for the sharing of patient records between clinical system.
In turn, this will support the deployment of new services.
The Better Platform will form a constituent part of the national architecture, along with the openEHR health informatics standard for the creation and retrieval of data across organisational and regional boundaries.
Under the first phase of the two-year programme, the Treatment Repository for Cancer and Welsh Adverse Reactions Service are scheduled go live in the autumn of this year. A spokesperson for Better said the platform will then be rolled out to other services to form an electronic patient record accessed through the Welsh Clinical Portal.
Single source of truth
Rob Jones, chief architect at DHCW, said: “We were looking for an approach that would enable us to move away from siloed data and ease the burden on document storage. We know that we need to deliver a single source of truth for structured clinical data.
“Simply, providing instant access to patient data, at the fingertips of healthcare decision makers. Using an agile approach, underpinned by an open platform with separating applications and data, will allow us to deliver new digital services to clinicians and citizens of Wales, faster.”
Matthew Cox, managing director of Better for the UK and Ireland, said: “The platform will enable rapid innovation to take place in the applications, all without altering the underlying data structure. This will lead to better provision of care and better patient experiences – a core objective of all national health services.”
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