Dennis,
As 'one old-timer to another 'the story goes as follows (I'll write it up in full in my memoirs)
 
The DH did award £100k+VAT to Craig Webster and myself to get a pilot going. No money was spent in the end for a variety of reasons (my Trust would not accept the capital charges for the others that might have been involved and because of an admin error the money went via Kent and took about a year to track down).
 
But what did happen was that Craig Webster put in a brilliant piece of work and did a business model and business case to support the  idea. W held couple of workshops and a lot of people contributed schema's and ideas to produce a full report.

All of this is preserved on www.ychi.leeds.ac.uk/labtolab

This lay dormant for a year or 2 and then I was offered two final year project students from the School of Computing, Ewan was expert in Biztalk having spent a year out with Microsoft in the corporate world and Taz had worked on NPfIT spine HL7 messages with Accenture.

In 3 months they put together a prototype which our pathologists were invited to evaluate for the degree course. Once they had seen it they wanted to use there and then.

The next step was a small grant from a University Innovation Fund to Ewan and Taz's tutor, Owen Johnson, to set up a Proof of Concept project to get the system up to industrial standards. This is what has been done and is what is inside X-Lab.

The final piece of the jigsaw is the Partnership with THIS which makes this available via the NHS.

To me it's a repeat of the old approach to analyser and assay development. We both know the way that the ACB has been so good at working in partnership between the NHS labs, academic science and industry and there are many good examples around  if you think of the old analysers - AA1?, ACS 180 and chemi-luminescence etc. The difference is that this is software and systems not analysers, biochemistry and hardware.

So finally if it plays out I'd make a claim that it will be the highest returning DH Path Mod project ever - £0 input and £nM savings according to Craig's model. How about that for infinity financial leverage!

Rick

From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dennis Wright [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 26 April 2010 19:08
To: [log in to unmask]; Richard Jones [Pathology]
Subject: Re: Pathology Content of the HealthCare2010 IT Conference

Reading the section in Rick's e-mail on the lab to lab messaging system I am
reminded that around the time of the Millennium the DH Pathology
Modernisation committee made an award to develop a product to do something
similar. Old age being what it is I can't remember who we made the award to.

Does anybody know what happened to that project?

Dennis Wright

-----Original Message-----
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Jones
[Pathology]
Sent: 19 April 2010 07:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Pathology Content of the HealthCare2010 IT Conference

If you work in Pathology IT you might be interested in the pathology content
of the HealthCare2010 IT conference in Birmingham next week
http://www.hc2010.co.uk<http://www.hc2010.co.uk/>. The entry to the
exhibition is free and there will be a lot of interesting new technology  on
display.
In main exhibition hall a number of suppliers will be showing some of the
newer versions of their lab and order coms systems. -
http://www.hc2010.co.uk/conference/exhibitors.php

On the upper floor of the exhibition (stand no. 8), The Heath Informatics
Service from NHS Calderdale and Huddersfield will be displaying their new
national electronic lab to lab service. "One of our key innovation areas is
our partnership with X-Lab Limited
(www.x-labsystems.co.uk<http://www.x-labsystems.co.uk/>) to provide a
pioneering Lab-to-Lab messaging system developed with the support of
Accenture, Microsoft, Leeds Pathology Laboratory and the University of
Leeds. The X-Lab product will be available to view on our stand this year."
This is in live use by the Greater Manchester Pathology network and is
handling volumes of tests with great user feedback.

The work on the National Laboratory Medicine Catalogue will also be on
display on the same stand (stand 8, upper floor). The "Catalogue" is
governed by the RCPath and will provide the definitive national coding for
all tests. You can see how the work is progressing - Biochemistry and
haematology are expected to be completed for full public viewing in 4-5
weeks.

In the conference:
I am talking on the issues of data quality in requesting and reporting in
particular on the safety issues which are developing when path results are
combined on clinical systems. "The hidden dangers of mixing clinical data
across systems in the absence of scientific understanding" - Dr Rick Jones,
Associate Clinical Director, Senior Lecturer and Consultant Chemical
Pathologist

Jonathan Kay will be presenting his fantastic vision of where we should be
using everyday tools to gain benefit. "Using everyday technologies in
healthcare" - Prof Jonathan Kay, Professor of Health Informatics, City
University London and Consultant Chemical Pathologist Oxford Radcliffe
Hospitals NHS Trust

Mike Murphy will be showcasing what Blood Transfusion have achieved almost
uniquely with the Blood Tracking Approach- safety and cost improvement.
"Blood transfusion - the development and implementation of an end-to-end
electronic clinical process" - Prof Mike Murphy, Professor of Blood
Transfusion Medicine, University of Oxford and Consultant Haematologist, NHS
Blood and Transplant and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals.

There will be several talks about what happens when you open up pathology
data in GP systems in some cases with shared clinician and patient access:

"Quality and safety at the point of care: the acute medical take". Tej
Desai, SpR in Elderly and General Medicine, Worthing Hospital, West Sussex

"Real time digital medicine" Dr Amir Hannan, GP and Primary Care IT Lead for
NHS North-West

And for anyone who remembers CPD4IT - there is a big push to get better
recognition for IT staff - long overdue:

"Professionalising IT in healthcare: development and implementation of an
education programme." Prue Hayes, Programme Manager CfH, South Staffordshire
Health Informatics Service; Hanifa Shah, Professor of Information Systems,
Staffordshire University.

"Getting the funding to the active HI professionals - investment in the coal
face or the ivory tower?" Paul Woolman, Chairman, Faculty of Health
Informatics; Nicola Perrin, Senior Policy Adviser Strategic Planning and
Policy Unit, The Wellcome Trust; Dr Janet Valentine, MRC.

And finally a challenge to some of the Data Protection myths from a legally
trained doctor.

"Does information governance kill patients?" Jon Fistein, Technical
Director, Tribal; Clare Sanderson, Director of Information Governance, NHS
Information Centre.

Hope to see some of you there,

Rick

Dr Rick Jones
Assoc Clin Director, Yorks and Humber Programme for IT
Sen Lect, Yorkshire Centre Health Informatics, Univ of Leeds
Consultant Chemical Pathologist, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
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------ACB discussion List Information--------
This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry.
Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content.
ACB Web Site
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