Ian Clucas, Deputy CIO of Interweave, explains how the creation of a cutting edge technology platform has been instrumental in enabling better care through shared data and improved interoperability.
Patient data is at the heart of how health and social care professionals deliver services. The seamless sharing of information has become a necessity for those healthcare provisions that need to act on real-time patient information which often spans the boundaries of their organisations.
From a technical perspective, there has long been a requirement to not only connect this data to provide a complete view of each patient, but also to free up valuable clinical time, allowing healthcare professionals to focus more on those in their care.
How a collaborative data platform improves care
Beginning as a regional initiative supported by NHS England’s Local Health and Care Record Exemplars (LHCRE) programme, the journey to develop a collaborative data sharing platform began with a goal to create a single, interoperable view of patient information that could follow individuals across health and social care settings, supporting safer, faster and more joined up care.
The platform needed to be designed in such a way that it would use widely accepted rules and be built in flexible, structured parts. This would allow different systems to work together while remaining independent from each other. It would also enable the seamless handling of additional users and a growing pool of patient data while connecting smoothly with existing health and clinical systems to share information.
Health and care providers needed to be able to contribute and consume records without relinquishing control over their information — a critical factor in enabling trust and governance across their organisations.
Introducing Interweave
The creation of Interweave as a dedicated platform has provided stakeholders with much more than a software solution. It offers an ecosystem allowing access to shared care records that is NHS-owned, federated, standards-led and built with user experience in mind. With over 14 million patients connected and a growing roster of integrated care systems (ICSs) expressing interest, the Interweave platform has been a phenomenal success.
The Interweave partnership has been established to govern the technology and principles while facilitating the broadening of its strategic ambitions and enabling other ICSs to onboard quickly and efficiently. Interweave is wholly owned by its ICS partners, and this partnership model oversees the delivery of a solution to connect health and care through digital while the consolidation of knowledge and expertise is kept within the system.
Consolidating healthcare systems nationally
The announcement that Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire ICSs would be formally joining the Interweave platform marked a significant milestone in the journey toward national interoperability. For Leicestershire, the transition represented a consolidation of previously fragmented systems into a unified care record environment. Over 1.2 million residents are now covered by the platform, with integration across University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL), Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, primary care, adult social care and community services.
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Nottinghamshire followed, with the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS prioritising Interweave to underpin its digital care strategy. Using Interweave, clinicians at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and local authorities gained real-time access to integrated data on medications, allergies, hospital admissions, care plans and social care interventions.
Both ICSs highlighted rapid deployment timelines as a critical success factor, made possible by Interweave’s open architecture and pre-configured connectors.
The future of AI in healthcare
One of the cornerstones of the government’s strategy for healthcare is the ambition for a single patient record (SPR), the case for which is well understood and accepted, although the mechanism for delivery has been the source of some debate. The Interweave team takes the stance that a hybrid model for delivery would be the most effective.
Facilitating partnerships for improved patient care
The Interweave project has so far brought together partners from West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Humber and North Yorkshire, as well as a diverse range of other provisions, including acute trusts, GPs, mental health providers, community services and local authorities.
