An NHS First for Public Cloud: Homerton Healthcare Achieves Milestone with Sectra Imaging Technology

SectraHomerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has become the first organisation anywhere in the NHS to deploy Sectra's enterprise imaging service using public cloud.

The deployment has shown that NHS patient imaging can be efficiently accessed from a secure public cloud environment, just as quickly as when data is stored on-premise.

This has proven important for busy radiology teams at the trust, who have been using the service since the summer, to help them analyse and report on thousands of patient scans that are a vital part of patient diagnosis. The trust delivers around 250,000 imaging reports for patients each year.

Adham Nicola, PACS manager for Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: "As a first-of-type for public cloud in the NHS, we have proven this works. Being bleeding edge can be a challenge. But we have achieved a milestone in cloud adoption for NHS imaging.

"Feedback from radiologists has been nothing but positive. The system is highly reliable, secure, resilient and performs well, supporting our diagnostic teams with lots more functionality that is proving very popular with radiologists. This also has the potential to help us to adopt AI into the future."

The enterprise imaging service has been deployed using the Sectra One Cloud subscription model. Sectra is providing a fully managed Software as a Service (SaaS), meaning staff at the trust will automatically gain access to relevant functionality and tools as they are released.

Staff have already praised features new to them, including a chat tool, which allows radiologists to quickly share images and communicate with each other as they create reports.

Orthopaedic templating functionality is helping surgeons as they plan for surgery, and means the trust is no longer reliant on a third-party application.

And a business intelligence product is allowing managers to better track activity, create analysis charts, and understand turnaround times and pressure points.

Cross-site reporting functionality will also help to lay foundations for future wider sub-speciality collaboration in the region, in areas such as paediatric and stroke radiology.

The scalable deployment signals an important step for imaging strategy for North East London's integrated care system. Homerton Healthcare is the first of three trusts in the North East London Health and Care Partnership planning to adopt enterprise imaging in the public cloud.

Niall Canavan, IT director at Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and chief information officer for North East London Health and Care Partnership, said: "Having imaging available in the public cloud will enable closer collaboration and better access to expertise, especially in areas where there are finite number of specialist radiologists. The team at Homerton Healthcare have not only made a significant achievement in demonstrating to the NHS what is possible in the cloud, but have completed a stage towards regional consolidation."

Jane Rendall, UK and Ireland managing director for Sectra, said: "What has been achieved by pioneering imaging professionals in Homerton could very quickly become the norm in the NHS. I'm sure many trusts, integrated care systems and NHS imaging networks will look to the trust to learn how they can replicate success as they transition to public cloud. We will certainly be sharing knowledge from this deployment with other NHS customers, as public cloud adoption continues at pace with the potential to enhance how staff work and to save important time in technology adoption."

About Sectra

With more than 30 years of innovation and approaching 2,000 installations worldwide, Sectra is a leading global provider of imaging IT solutions that support healthcare in achieving patient-centric care. Sectra offers an enterprise imaging solution that provides a unified strategy for all imaging needs while lowering operational costs. The scalable and modular solution, with a VNA at its core, allows healthcare providers to grow from ology to ology and from enterprise to enterprise. Visit Sectra's website to read more about Sectra and why it’s top-ranked in 'Best in KLAS'.

Most Popular Now

Airwave Healthcare Expands Team with Fra…

Patient stimulus technology provider Airwave Healthcare has appointed Francesca McPhail, who will help health and care providers achieve more from their media and entertainment systems for people receiving care. Francesca McPhail...

Scientists Use AI to Detect Chronic High…

Researchers at Klick Labs unveiled a cutting-edge, non-invasive technique that can predict chronic high blood pressure (hypertension) with a high degree of accuracy using just a person's voice. Just published...

ChatGPT Outperformed Trainee Doctors in …

The chatbot ChatGPT performed better than trainee doctors in assessing complex cases of respiratory disease in areas such as cystic fibrosis, asthma and chest infections in a study presented at...

Former NHS CIO Will Smart Joins Alcidion

A former national chief information officer for health and social care in England, Will Smart will join the Alcidion Group board in a global role from October. He will provide...

The Darzi Review: The NHS "Is in Se…

Lyn Whitfield, content director at Highland Marketing, takes a look at Lord Darzi's review of the NHS, immediate reaction, and next steps. The review calls for a "tilt towards technology...

SPARK TSL Appoints David Hawkins as its …

SPARK TSL has appointed David Hawkins as its new sales director, to support take-up of the SPARK Fusion infotainment solution by NHS trusts and health boards. SPARK Fusion is a state-of-the-art...

Can Google Street View Data Improve Publ…

Big data and artificial intelligence are transforming how we think about health, from detecting diseases and spotting patterns to predicting outcomes and speeding up response times. In a new study analyzing...

Healthcare Week Luxembourg: Second Editi…

1 - 2 October 2024, Luxembourg.Save the date: Healthcare Week Luxembourg is back on 1 and 2 October 2024 at Luxexpo The Box. Acclaimed last year by healthcare professionals from...

AI Products Like ChatGPT can Provide Med…

The much-hyped AI products like ChatGPt may provide medical doctors and healthcare professionals with information that can aggravate patients' conditions and lead to serious health consequences, a study suggests. Researchers considered...

One in Five UK Soctors use AI Chatbots

A survey led by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden reveals that a significant proportion of UK general practitioners (GPs) are integrating generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, into their...

Specially Designed Video Games may Benef…

In a review of previous studies, a Johns Hopkins Children's Center team concludes that some video games created as mental health interventions can be helpful - if modest - tools...

AI may Enhance Patient Safety

Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) uses hundreds of millions, sometimes billions, of data points to train itself to produce realistic and innovative outputs that can mimic human-created content. Its applications include...