INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Joined-up IT systems – Clinisys ICE Summit shows the way forward
Clinisys’ second big customer summit of 2024 saw more than 150 people gather at The Belfry to hear about the roadmap for its order communications and results reporting system, innovative use-cases, and why it all matters. Matthew Fouracre reports.
As the health and care system becomes both more complex and more integrated, IT that can smooth workflows and share vital patient information across organisations becomes ever more important.
So, it was no surprise that more than 150 customers of Clinisys’ order communications and results reporting system, ICE (Integrated Clinical Environment), gathered at the Belfry last autumn for a customer summit. After all, ICE underpins today’s healthcare and looks set to play a big role in the joined- up, technology-supported health and care system of the future.
Healthcare changes and Clinisys responds
The busy day and a half started with an introduction from Clinisys Vice President Support for UK, Ireland and Europe, Darren Solomon. He outlined some of the many reasons for the changing environment in which pathology, diagnostics and its suppliers operate. These include: the huge demand
pressure that the whole of healthcare is under and the formation of pathology networks “which are all at different levels of maturity”. Also, a tough cyber security and a changing technology environment, in which older operating systems and browsers are being retired.
Against this background, Solomon said
Clinisys’ role is to develop products “that meet your needs”, embrace new thinking, and are easy to deploy and upgrade. “We know we are another provider asking you to upgrade, but it really is essential, so we are working on upgradability,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s a word, but let’s go with it.”
New interface engine, new UI Upgradability matters because ICE really is one of the NHS’s core IT systems.
Around 75% of GPs and 120 trusts and health boards use ICE to order and report tests for more than 40 million patients every year. However, there are many ‘flavours’ of ICE in place. And there’s a big jump from all of them to the latest product versions: ICE 8 or ICE 2024. “One of the things we have done is to
rebuild the interface engine (that allows ICE to interface with, or ‘talk to’, other systems),” said Glyn Hughes, Senior Product Manager. “We have stripped out a load of legacy code, which makes it much lighter and faster.” Also, connections are no longer
hard coded. New ICE uses application programming interfaces or APIs to exchange information with other systems, so integrations can be managed by the customer as workflows change or new providers come on stream. The bigger change for ICE’s half a million clinical users will be a move to a new user interface, the ICE native UI. This will replace ICE Desktop, that was built for
Over 150 customers of Clinisys’ order communications and results reporting system ICE, attended the customer summit.
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