Northgate already has a strong healthcare presence in the UK and currently works in partnership with every health and social care trust in Northern Ireland and more than half of all health boards in Scotland.
Its expansion into England comes as pressure to transform NHS patient services intensifies in the wake of increased demand, reduced resources and major healthcare reform.
Northgate will provide ICT infrastructure services and flexible managed services delivered on-site via their regional IT team from service centres across the UK in a move designed to help local health organisations deliver QIPP efficiencies, and meet the requirements of the recent information strategy for the NHS.
The NHS IT strategy encourages clinicians, commissioners and providers to communicate electronically to minimise gaps in treatment pathways and join up services to improve patient care. It also promises to provide NHS patients with secure online access to their personal GP records by 2015. However it is widely accepted that the current IT infrastructure of the NHS must be improved if the opportunities presented by electronic healthcare are to be realised.
"Increasing access to vital patient information can only improve health outcomes and lead to a safer, more efficient and more effective health service," said James Turnbull, managing director sales, Northgate Managed Services. "But if the aims of the IT strategy are to be met and patient services are to be transformed, local organisations across the NHS in England will need help.
"Implementing and maintaining IT solutions is not a core competency for healthcare professionals, it's just expected, yet healthcare organisations' IT departments are under increasing pressure to deliver more for less, particularly as organisations merge or newly establish, and services consortiums emerge. The trick is to identify and partner with technology experts, who can help determine how to improve IT services to end users while reducing costs."
Northgate Managed Services works as a strategic partner with NHS organisations to help develop innovative and cost-effective ICT services and reduce inefficiencies. It partners with leading healthcare applications and solutions providers to enhance patient care, focusing on delivering improved:
- Quality of information
- Efficiencies
- Collaboration and communication
- Patient data security
- Access to clinical systems and electronic health records
The company, which currently works with over 2,000 customers, has been responsible for the successful deployment and management of technologies that have helped build patient-centric services across the NHS in Northern Ireland and Scotland. This includes the introduction of comprehensive clinical portals that bring together all aspects of the patient record to form a single view for clinicians, as well as Northgate's mobile Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution.
The Virtual Desktop solution enables clinicians to access data at the patient's bedside and provides centralised information using a single sign-on. Traditional desktop management can consume between 35-45% of a provider’s IT budget. Centralised management of IT using Northgate's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution is offering IT departments a more efficient and cost-effective way of providing desktop support - with clear benefits to patient services.
Northgate Managed Services now plans to offer these solutions to the NHS in England - and their introduction could not be better timed for local health organisations.
"Incoming clinical commissioning groups and existing healthcare providers could benefit greatly from partnering with managed services experts that can help them optimise technology to improve patient care," said James Turnbull.
"Evidence increasingly shows that where the implementation and management of healthcare IT systems has been outsourced, the strain on NHS resources has been reduced and health organisations have been freed to focus on patient care. In the process, innovation has flourished, patient satisfaction has increased and health outcomes have improved."
Northgate Managed Services will present its portfolio of ICT services on Stand 63 at EHI Live 2012, at Birmingham's NEC on 6th & 7th November.
About Northgate Managed Services
Northgate Managed Services is part of the Northgate Information Solutions Group, owned by private equity company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR. It is a leading IT services company providing cloud based & infrastructure services to public, private & third sector organisations & specialist managed services in the education, government, utilities & charities sectors.
The company works in partnership with its customers to gain an in-depth understanding of their organisation and create a technology strategy to support transformation, drive operational efficiency and reduce costs. In the Health Sector, Northgate Managed Services works in partnership with every health board in Northern Ireland and more than half of all health boards in Scotland to deliver smarter, more efficient ways of operating.
Northgate was nationally recognised as the IT Supplier of the Year at the British Computer Society (BCS) & Computing UK Industry Awards in 2011 and has been shortlisted in three categories for the forthcoming Awards in November 2012.