At Mayden, we believe that safe, effective and high quality care is dependent on interoperability.
Some of the biggest risks of poor quality care is when it is handed from one provider to another, or when patient care is delivered by multiple organisations using different systems.
But systems and services don’t exist in isolation. Patients engage with many different organisations, services and agencies across health and social care throughout their lifetimes, often simultaneously. And that is where interoperability comes in.
There are few types of developments that system suppliers can make to their products that have as big an impact, to both clinicians and patients, then when systems can work together.
So, what does interoperability mean?
In short, interoperability refers to the basic ability of different products or systems to connect and exchange information with one another.
This is not a healthcare specific challenge and is shared by many industries. In healthcare, the importance for providers to be able to share information is widely acknowledged. The ongoing work around Local Care Record (LCR) projects, groups such as InterOPEN and the trade association Tech UK and their work into standards, charters and agreements around information sharing, show the commitment from suppliers and healthcare professionals to work together to tackle this challenge.
Over the last few years we’ve seen a sharp increase in new digital tools that have been designed to support both communication with patients and care delivery. These tools, and all other clinical systems across the NHS are going to have to communicate with one another, to ensure that care is not fragmented.
At Mayden, we actively seek out opportunities to integrate with other safe and secure systems so that services have secure access to all the information they require about a patient and ensure patient experience and quality of care is maintained.
Prism is one of our solutions to interoperability. It was developed by Mayden as a mechanism for interoperability between our flagship product, iaptus Digital Care Record (DCR), and digital health platforms. Since its inception, Prism has seen the automated and secure transfer of 100,000+ treatment sessions a year between systems. This has given NHS services safe, secure and seamless access to digital treatment options. It has also helped to increase services’ capacity and reduce overall wait times by offering immediate access to treatment, to suitable patients, in the form of online therapy, remote therapy and other digital interventions.
Interoperability Meaning: What does it mean for your healthcare service?
What does interoperability mean to healthcare providers?
Interoperability between healthcare systems means that healthcare providers don’t have to enter the same patient information twice.
Clinicians can see relevant information about their patients existing in other clinical systems from other services. They can make a decision with patients that takes into account their entire picture of health. It reduces duplication and administration, and importantly, it also reduces the concerns of any clinical risk from not having access to the right information about their patient, at the right time.
For our Prism project, connecting our iaptus software with digital therapy providers, interoperability allows therapists to monitor their patients’ progress online, making interventions as and when they are needed. Online therapy can be used to supplement ongoing face-to-face therapy, reducing wait times and freeing time for other patients to be treated.
What does interoperability mean to patients?
One of our driving ambitions for iaptus is that it is centred around the patient. We want people to feel engaged and empowered to be a partner in their own care.
Interoperability can help there too. It’s hard for patients to be engaged and motivated for their recovery, when their experience of care is not person centred. Having to repeat their medical history, or repeat medical information each time they see a new healthcare professional can be frustrating for patients. Interoperability for patients means efficiency, convenience and quality care.
What does interoperability mean to Mayden?
For Mayden, interoperability means building strong partnerships. We currently work with over 30 partners, ranging from digital health platforms to other DCR providers. Prism allows us to integrate iaptus with our partners’ systems, so that services can securely pass patient information from one system to another.
High quality treatment relies upon all those involved in a patient’s care being able to collaborate, with access to all appropriate and relevant patient data – no matter where it is stored.
Prioritising interoperability for iaptus has seen 374,317 treatment sessions safely and securely passed from our digital health partners back into iaptus in 2020 alone.
If you are going to the Digital Health Rewired 2023 conference in London, stop by stand B20 to talk to the team behind the software, or please get in touch using our online form.
