Mayden was born into the aftermath of the dot-com crash and an atmosphere of mounting concern about putting health data onto the internet. A challenging time to launch a healthcare web business, especially in a rural location unable to receive broadband.
But the potential of the web to transform the way we manage healthcare was clear. We had lots of ideas and technological know-how but in the end it is people that make the difference. If Mayden has unlocked a formula for success it is in partnering with pioneers in the NHS who share our vision and are willing to take a risk to bring about radical transformation – and then building a team to support them.
One decade on and our first application, CQuINS, is one of the longest serving web tools used in the NHS. Currently in its fourth generation, it has extended beyond assessing NHS cancer teams and now serves clinical services as diverse as diabetes, stroke and trauma. It is also now being used to support a project covering 22 European countries.
Our patient management system, IAPTus, currently supports 90 psychological therapy services across England and is responsible for holding the clinical records of 75% of patients entering the government’s flagship Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme.
Orbit, an operational management system which we originally designed to run our own business, is now being used in screening services, CSUs and AHSNs.
And the network infrastructure we have developed to support all our applications is now benefitting start-up companies and small SMEs, providing them with low cost, high availability access to the National NHS network (N3) under our M3 hosting programme.
Not everything we developed has been a success, however. Our pioneering healthcare analytics platform, happi, provided simple yet versatile access to patient activity information to a wider audience. It was arguably one of our best endeavours, and rapidly gained PCT clients across the country, but did not survive the national cull of PCTs that took place in 2006. That said, we recently relaunched Mayden Analytics and have already gained several diverse and challenging projects working with almost every type of healthcare dataset.
After ten years we have far exceeded our own expectations. We currently serve 120 clients and a Mayden system is now used in almost every NHS Trust. So it is with a profound sense of gratitude to all those who have supported us on our journey that I am delighted to take this opportunity to celebrate our first decade and look forward to the decade ahead.
Our healthcare system is facing many challenges. An ever-growing elderly population will bring unprecedented levels of disease and conditions that need to be managed in an economic environment that is not equipped to support it.
But we can work smarter. Technology can provide better diagnostics and treatments, improved communication and more integrated care. We have a huge opportunity to improve the way we do healthcare while providing patients with more choice and empowering them to take a greater role in treatment decisions. Looking forward, our roadmap sees developments across all these areas, enhanced by improvements in the user experience, client support, innovative contracting and state-of-the art analytics. All with even greater transparency and without compromising on data security.
The challenges ahead are substantial but we are well equipped to face them. With an expanding data network, improved software technologies and a team growing both in number and talent we are looking forward to making our contribution to the future of healthcare. Our journey has only just begun…
