Care Alliance Commitment to Clinical Excellence for 350,000 Users.

The System C & Graphnet Care Alliance has announced a series of new initiatives building on its existing ties with NHS clinicians, industry and academia. Taken together, the package is designed to meet the recommendations of various national reviews into delivering the digital future for the NHS. 

Over a 30-year history of supporting health and social care in the UK, the System C & Graphnet Care Alliance has built a solid base of clinical informatics expertise. In order to deliver its watchword of clinical usability, it has made it a priority to employ clinicians and former NHS staff on the design, development and deployment of its software. 

More recently, the companies’ internal structures have developed to reflect the emergence of the new chief clinical information officer (CCIO) and chief nursing information officer (CNIO) roles in the NHS, under senior clinicians Dr Jon Shaw, the alliance’s director of clinical product strategy, and Dr Jonathan Bloor, its medical director.

Dr Shaw explained: “Altogether, the System & Graphnet Care Alliance has over 350,000 users of its software, all of them working within the NHS and social care.  A major focus for us has to be on developing software that doesn’t just automate processes but which also helps make care professionals jobs that little bit easier and more enjoyable,” he said.  “We believe that patient care will inevitably benefit from well-designed systems which support the clinical workflow.”

Dr Bloor has set up and heads a new clinical adoption team within the Care Alliance. This team consists of senior clinicians, recruited specifically to help customers accelerate the clinical adoption of the System C and Graphnet product suites and to maximise the products’ potential within their organisations.  

“We want to make sure that all our users get the maximum possible benefit out of our systems. The clinical adoption team is specifically there to assist with that,” Dr Bloor said.

The Care Alliance is also building close relationships with practising clinicians, industry and academia. This is in line with the emphasis in the recent Topol review that collaboration is essential if the NHS is to capitalise on the promise of digital technologies for improving care. 

These steps include:

• A new Clinical Engagement Group. This is a formal clinical community of System C’s NHS users, open to all CCIOs, CNIOs, and clinical leads across the System C customer base. Their remit is to provide expert clinical opinion on all aspects of System C’s clinical systems development roadmap and strategic direction.  The group meets formally four times a year and is in addition to the traditional user groups set up for each element of the System C product set. 

• Support for the development of digital leaders. System C is providing mentoring support for NHS staff through the new Digital Academy, contributing insight from industry into what is the first national learning programme in change management, leadership and clinical informatics. 

• The company has also been involved in the creation of a new Bristol Digital Futures Institute at the University of Bristol. With a £100m grant from Research England alongside funding and support from partner organisations including System C, the Institute brings together academia and business to research how technology will be used and experienced in the future – in areas such as health and education.  

• Full engagement with national CCIO, CNIO and CIO networks, industry groupings such as techUK, and collaborative standards-setting organisations. Simon Cavell, chief technology officer at the Care Alliance, is an elected board member of the open standards body INTEROPen. The forum brings together individuals, industry, standards organisations, and health and care providers to collaborate on the design and application of interoperability standards.