Access to the Care and Health Information Exchange Delivers Benefits for Care Homes in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight

Orion HealthOne of England's best-known shared care records is helping to join-up health and care services by rolling-out access to care homes with the support of its technology provider, Orion Health.

The Care and Health Information Exchange, which operates across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, has been able to offer secure access to care homes after Orion Health incorporated the kind of multi-factor authentication that is increasingly common in banking and commercial services.

The move means that staff at care homes can access important demographic and clinical information about their residents by going to the CHIE website, entering their login details, and then entering a one-time access code that is sent to their smart phone or device.

Josh Horder, who leads the Digital Social Care Programme for NHS Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, said this has opened up access to organisations outside the NHS secure network; and the impact on care homes has been "profound".

"During Covid-19, there was a focus on discharging patients from hospital," he said. "Admissions to care homes were being arranged much more quickly than previously, so care homes wanted access to the information in CHIE so they had information about their new residents immediately.

"Today, we are in a different place with the pandemic, but my ethos for the Digital Social Care Programme is 'more time to care'; and the delivery of CHIE to care homes absolutely underpins that ethos.

"Care home staff can spend more time with residents, because they don’t have to leave the floor to find information. It's also better for residents and their families, because they only have to tell their story once and pass on important details once."

The Care and Health Information Exchange was founded as the Hampshire Health Record 18-years ago. It announced that it was moving to Orion Health in 2019 and successfully completed the shift in July last year.

To support the roll-out to care homes, Orion Health incorporated the Keycloak open source identity and access management solution. The shared care record’s administrators use Keycloak to create user accounts and users download their choice of authentication app to generate the one-time access codes.

Google Authenticate, OTP Auth, and Microsoft Authenticator are all supported. CHIE access was piloted at 50 care homes and subsequently offered to all the care homes in the region that want it.

Liliana Macieira, manager of the Woodley Grange care home in Romsey, said the new system as been "a lovely journey." She explained: "We used to spend a lot of time on the phone to hospitals, GP surgeries and other professionals to collect information about our patients, but now it is all there for us.

"It means we get to spend more time with residents. We can get all the information we need with a single click and get on with providing a better quality service."

Mia Williams, senior lead at the Oaklands Rest Home in Marchwood, said: "We started using CHIE a few months ago, and it has been brilliant. It enables us to deliver person-centred care.

"Residents and their families know that we know everything that we need to know to look after them. It is just a click of a button and everything is in front of you, which is just perfect."

So far, around 160 care homes have taken up the offer of access to CHIE, and the shared care record project is encouraging more to sign-up.

Katharine Guthrie, stakeholder engagement and benefits manager, said: "This is all about joining up health and care, by looking beyond the traditional users of a shared care record, and bringing them into the CHIE family, safely and securely."

Brian Murray, UKI regional sales director at Orion Health said: "It is wonderful to see a well-established shared care record opening up access to new organisations and to hear about the huge difference that this has made to care home staff and residents.

"We know that access outside the NHS’ secure networks is a challenge, which is why we were happy to support the introduction of multi-factor authentication as a possible solution. We look forward to other shared care records taking the same kind of innovative and forward-thinking approach."

About Orion Health

Orion Health is an award-winning, global healthcare technology company and one of the world’s foremost providers of healthcare integration solutions to healthcare organisations.

Worldwide, Orion Health solutions are used in 13 countries by more than 300,000 clinicians.

With nearly 30 years' experience in health, Orion Health provides an open platform which enables access to healthcare by more than 100 million patients across the world.

The company provides interoperability, population health management and precision medicine solutions for health information exchanges, shared care records, accountable care organisations and payers.

Orion Health is committed to continuous innovation, investing substantially in research and development to cement its position at the forefront of precision medicine.

Most Popular Now

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foun…

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG) has launched new NHS App features to transform the way patients access and manage their appointments within the NHS. The programme, known...

Orion Health Strengthens French Business…

Orion Health is strengthening its presence in France with the appointment of digital health industry heavyweight, Tristan Debove, to lead its operations. Tristan Debove has more than 25 years of experience...

Genomics England Deploys Sectra Imaging …

Genomics England has completed installation of an enterprise imaging system that will help to support a world-pioneering initiative for cancer research. The programme is linking whole genome sequencing, pathology and...

AI Approach may Help Detect Alzheimer's …

Although investigators have made strides in detecting signs of Alzheimer's disease using high-quality brain imaging tests collected as part of research studies, a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) recently...

AI Predicts Cancer Patient Survival by R…

A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts cancer patient survival more accurately and with more...

Virtual Reality Games can be Used as a T…

Virtual reality gamers (VR game) who finished it faster than their fellow gamers also have higher levels of general intelligence and processing capacity. This was the result of a study...

Will Future Computers Run on Human Brain…

A "biocomputer" powered by human brain cells could be developed within our lifetime, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers who expect such technology to exponentially expand the capabilities of modern...

Detecting Anaemia Earlier in Children Us…

Researchers at UCL and University of Ghana have successfully predicted whether children have anaemia using only a set of smartphone images. The study, published in PLOS ONE, brought together researchers and...

AI can Help Optimize CT Scan X-Ray Radia…

Computed tomography (CT) is one of the most powerful and well-established diagnostic tools available to modern medicine. An increasing number of people have been opting for CT scans, raising concerns...

Study Reveals Smartphone Spyware Apps ar…

Smartphone spyware apps that allow people to spy on each other are not only hard to notice and detect, they also will easily leak the sensitive personal information they...

Orion Health Appoints Mark Hindle as Vic…

Orion Health has appointed Mark Hindle as its new vice president for the UK and Ireland. Mark has joined the leading supplier of digital tools to improve healthcare experience from...