INHEALTH

thing that makes their lives simpler .

“ The NHS is a particularly intricate customer and the general public thinks of it as one entity , but of course it ’ s not – it ’ s a myriad of different organisations . It ’ s a complex mix , and each individual piece of integration we undertake is a mini project in itself .”

A digital overhaul of this magnitude is a huge project for a company of InHealth ’ s size , but O ’ Brien is pleased with the results : “ It has had a couple of bumps along the way , but we ’ ve delivered a really great solution that everyone is really pleased with . We have management information instantly available , which is something we used to struggle to collect , and we can manage patient workflow effectively .”

O ’ Brien and his team now plan to extend the system outwards and do away with the paper trail entirely . He

hopes that this will eliminate the last remnants of clinical risk by removing human error : “ If we can enable the GP to link a referral to us electronically , we would significantly reduce risk ,” he says . “ The rest is streamlining our processes . All the work we ’ ve done in the last two years has been really patient-focused and I suspect once it ’ s completely stable , it ’ ll give us more time to look at our back office systems .” O ’ Brien considers InHealth ’ s relationships with suppliers to be one of the lynchpins of its success . The organisation treats suppliers like business partners and achieves the best possible result thanks to this positive relationship .

“ We ’ ve partnered with EE to assist with connectivity ,” says O ’ Brien . “ We can connect up a new site within days rather than months , which would be the option with a standard leased line . The EE project is a game-changer ; without connectivity you have to move

48 November 2016