About Bluewire
Dr Adam Towler formed Bluewire Technologies after experiencing first hand, the severe lack of flexible, intuitive, clinical software for managing patients and medicine and recording information during their stay in hospital. The key objective was to provide software which clinicians, ward staff, pharmacists and IT/information staff found clinically focused, adaptable to cope with different services and workflow patterns and with a strong focus on meeting clinical need, improving medical productivity and driving the quality of clinical care through the use of IT.
A highly skilled team of developers was formed and working with several willing NHS partners and an understanding of the day to day issues faced by busy clinicians, the company developed a web based E-Discharge solution which is designed to work in conjunction with Trusts existing Patient Administration Systems using HL7 standards or integration engine. The roll-out of the system across different hospital settings, including pharmacy, and the delivery of discharge summaries to GPs, along with performance and scalability, has really allowed the company to test the application in live environments with many of the initial key objectives being met.
The National Programme for IT aimed to provide such solutions but delays in delivery, combined with new NHS discharge summary targets and concerns identified in the Care Quality Commission report over the quality and accuracy of information sent to GPs, has heightened interest in solutions able to resolve many of these problems. Recognising that it’s not just about software but process and workflow consultancy, interfacing with other systems, education and training, IT services, project management and ongoing service and support were all needed to ensure a successful implementation. In 2009 Bluewire signed an agreement with Speech Recognition Company (SRC) who, in partnership with Bluewire, are able to provide these services and capacity along with additional extensions to Epro for those Trusts wishing to manage documentation and introduce digital dictation or speech recognition. Also in 2009, Bluewire agreed a partnership arrangement with the health division of Specialist Computer Centres (SCC) who provide technical services and are approved for both Catalist and NHS ASCC framework agreements under which the software can be procured.
Meeting NHS standards has always been a policy of Bluewire and as an active participant in its relationship with Microsoft Common User Interface (CUI) standards, considers the adoption of these standards and NHS interoperability standards by suppliers of IT solutions to the NHS will provide major benefits in the drive to deliver a common user interface and integration across the whole of the National Health Service. The adoption of these standards combined with the improvement in quality, performance and patient safety experienced by its customers has now encouraged other NHS Trusts to also implement the solution in recent months.