Better contracted to deliver clinical data repository for Wales

Digital Health and Care Wales has awarded a two-year contract to Better for a clinical data repository that will help to transform care and treatment for patients.

Using an open-platform approach, patient records can be shared between clinical systems through common standards, supporting more specialised treatments and powering critical research to provide the insights needed to save lives.

Following an extensive 18-month review process, the Better Platform was selected for persistence of structured clinical data which will support DHCW’s Phase 1 open platform-based approach, accelerating standardisation of clinical data to support the deployment of new services. Examples of which include the National Cancer Programme, Shared Medications Repository and Welsh Adverse Reactions Service.

The Better platform will form a constituent part of the national architecture. Patient record applications such as the Welsh Clinical Portal (WCP), will make use of the openEHR based CDR to create and retrieve data thereby strengthening the electronic health record in Wales. Additionally, exposing this data to the new tools and services that are being used by the National Data Resource will enable NHS Wales to gain new insight on data across Health and Care domains. The new approach will make use of open standard specifications that become accessible through the Portal, facilitating access to the data across organisational and regional boundaries via the National Data Resource.

Rob Jones, Chief Architect at Digital Health and Care Wales, said: “We were looking for an approach that would enable us to move away from siloed data and ease the burden on document storage. We know that we need to deliver a single source of truth for structured clinical data. Simply, providing instant access to patient data, at the fingertips of healthcare decision makers. Using an agile approach, underpinned by an open platform with separating applications and data, will allow us to deliver new digital services to clinicians and citizens of Wales, faster.”

Under the first phase of the two-year programme, the Treatment Repository for Cancer and Welsh Adverse Reactions Service will go live in the Autumn 2021.

Matthew Cox, Managing Director of Better for the UK and Ireland, said: “We are delighted Digital Health and Care Wales chose the Better platform to manage the clinical data which will enable the acceleration of the delivery of digital services. The platform will enable rapid innovation to take place in the applications, all without altering the underlying data structure. This will lead to better provision of care and better patient experiences – a core objective of all national health services.”