BridgeHead is delighted to have won HTN’s Most Promising Pilot Award at the recent HTN Awards for it’s successful pilot of of HiPRES™ which pioneers a completely new way of managing pathology workflows at Lancashire & South Cumbria Health & Care Partnership.
BridgeHead Software has been collaborating with the Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership (LSCHCP), to develop a new, mobile workflow and data management solution, called HiPRES™. HiPRES provides a fully digitized, agile connectivity platform for the management of workflows and associated data to support multiple clinical pathways. HiPRES uses best-of-breed mobile and data management technology to speed up processes, reduce costly wastage, and ensure data quickly flows across NHS networks. This data is immediately available to clinicians who are then able to better support patients with informed care decisions.
The History of HiPRES
HiPRES was originally the brainchild of Professor Anthony Rowbottom, MBE who is the Clinical Director for the Lancashire and South Cumbria Pathology Collaboration (part of LSCHCP) and recently appointed North-West Clinical Lead for Pathology for NHS England.
The ICS continuously strives to improve services, focusing on enhancing care delivery, the patient experience, and outcomes. As part of its digital transformation journey, the digital team recognised the huge potential in leveraging Professor Rowbottom’s vision by utilising technology to better capture, manage and leverage clinical, patient, and administrative data; and to address process inefficiencies associated with specific care pathways. NHS staff spend an inordinate amount of time on paperwork and administrative tasks when they would much rather dedicate their efforts to providing care for patients.
The digital team also recognised the opportunity to reduce or remove costly wastage arising from process inefficiencies whilst making system-wide improvements across the ICS.
As a leader in healthcare data management, BridgeHead Software was approached by LSCHCP to determine if there was a strategic fit. After initial discussions, it became clear that BridgeHead understood the vision for a long-term solution that could be adapted to a diverse range of clinical pathways over time. The partnership began soon after and BridgeHead quickly brought this vision to life, starting as a proof of concept.
HiPRES™ – Initial Proof of Concept for COVID LAMP-90 testing
The first use case identified for the proof of concept started in the summer of 2020 and focused on providing a mobile app that integrates with a data management engine to capture, store, protect, and share the data and images required to support saliva testing for COVID-19 across the region. The project initially focused on testing NHS staff to reduce transmission of the virus in care settings. The goal was to digitalise the testing process, with end-to-end tracking of saliva samples through the pathology laboratories, with test results delivered via text or email to the end user; with process and data governance ensured throughout. Professor Rowbottom’s vision included capturing as much data as possible to help better understand the behaviour of COVID-19 as well as patients’ immune response to the disease, and the impact on the health of the population.
BridgeHead Software quickly developed the HiPRES solution in close collaboration with the LSCHCP. The HiPRES minimal viable product (MVP) underwent a phased deployment across the region for early testing and feedback, which has since culminated in the version in use today that now boasts over 10,000 NHS users. The HiPRES app supports the processing of up to 30,000 samples each month through the laboratory at peak times. This has significantly increased the testing capacity across the health economy during the pandemic.
BridgeHead’s HiPRES solution eliminates manual processing and has allowed the ICS to move from a paper-based workflow to a data-driven and digital workflow. The ICS can now surface the patient’s ID and demographic information through integration with the NHS Spine, plus electronically capture additional contact information, if required. This ensures that any data captured using HiPRES is correctly linked with the corresponding patient record. In the case of test results, these are now readily distributed to the appropriate departments, enabling clinicians to quickly inform patients. In addition, HiPRES has enabled the ICS to provide real-time data to Public Health England so it can make informed decisions about strategy, resourcing, and treatment.
How Does HiPRES Work?
The HiPRES solution is underpinned by BridgeHead’s HealthStore® solution, a standards-based repository that securely stores, protects, and shares clinical and administrative data. HealthStore works in concert with a best of breed, simple-to-use, zero-footprint mobile app; to capture the data and images associated with individual clinical pathways, including barcode scanning, patient validation, consent, and demographic updates. The HiPRES app features intuitive, pre-configured screens to guide staff through process workflows with minimal training.
One of LSCHCP’s strategies was to ensure that patient data is captured once, but utilised multiple times across multiple use cases, whether as part of the integrated, longitudinal shared care record for direct care; the person held health and social care record; or for secondary uses of data, e.g., for population health management and clinical research. HiPRES securely manages the flow of captured data making it available as part of the ICS’ shared care record, as well as integrating with other core applications, such as laboratory information systems (LIMS).
Furthermore, HiPRES also generates reports that enable the ICS to carry out data analysis, which has been particularly important in the case of disease monitoring regarding COVID regionally and nationally.
The Future Of HiPRES At Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership
Although vital during the pandemic, managing the COVID-19 testing workflow is just one aspect of the value that the HiPRES can deliver. As HiPRES can reach across primary, secondary and community care settings, it has the versatility to manage the workflows of other, manually intensive processes, as well as accommodating new care pathways as they emerge.
Since the successful roll out of HiPRES for saliva testing, BridgeHead has been collaborating with the digital team at LSCHCP on new pathways, with the aim of overhauling and automating existing manual and administrative workflows; and ensuring the streamlined flow of data to where it is needed to support care delivery. These include other point-of-care testing use cases; as well as managing the workflows and data to support dermatology, phlebotomy, and digital pathology.
