July 14, 2020

Black Pear Core Care Plans chosen for Greater Manchester Digital Platform

Greater Manchester Digital Platform gathers pace, procuring more tech solutions to join up health, social care and community

The drive to develop the Greater Manchester Digital Platform to transform public services, using state-of-the-art technology, is gathering momentum.

The next generation digital platform is being designed and built to hold, analyse and share information across health, social care and community settings for the first time.

A further suite of suppliers has now been procured to join the Greater Manchester Digital Platform programme which, as part of the national Local Health Care Record (LHCR) programme, is being overseen by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, on behalf of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP).

The city region is making fast progress to develop a suite of digital products which will sit on the platform, making it easier, safer and quicker for professionals and citizens to access the right information when and where they need it. In August the technology will be first tested in the areas of dementia and frailty as we launch technology in Tameside and Salford to join up health and care core record plans.

We welcome the following new suppliers who are now delivering technology as part of the programme:

Black Pear

Providing two-way integration of GP systems with acute and community settings to share core care plans which can be updated by any relevant user.
For more information https://www.gmdigitalplatform.nhs.uk/news-and-events/shared-care-plan-for-dementia-and-frailty-gathers-pace/

Shaping Cloud

Delivering an innovative identity and access management service for use by the GM Digital Platform suite of technologies.
This means robust audited access, compliant with relevant standards, so everyone who needs to access the information can do this effortlessly and without risk.

Snowflake

Providing a cloud data platform and an analytics and data science platform. So that anonymous data can be extracted, honouring all the national personal data security requirements.

Janeiro Digital

Providing pioneering new software (XFORM Health) which gives people more control of their own health and care data. In GM we will be testing the concept of new citizen-held records (PODS) so people can hold and use their personal data, using the GM Digital Platform. In this way people will have total control over their own data and how it is used.

Aire Logic

Building of e-forms and linking of the various components of the platform to support the storage of citizen data. Supporting the creation of situation reporting tools for the GM Covid-19 response and creating an electronic version of the ‘This is me’ from for people with dementia.
Building and configuring a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) so health and care data can be stored and shared in a standard format. This means it will be understood and used by everyone.

Clinical Architecture

Delivering terminology and ‘semantic normalisation’ solutions to harmonise disparate coded data to national standard codes. This will mean information on the GM Digital Platform can be represented and processed consistently.

Orion Health

Development of Greater Manchester Integration Engine to support the integration and message flow across the platform, verifying identity so data can be located using the record locator service. This is a key function of the digital platform. Using Rhapsody ® from Lyniate – an integration engine which provides the tools to build and manage the flow of messages across the digital platform.

John Llewellyn, Director of Digital, Northern Care Alliance, said:


As a Global Digital Exemplar, Salford Royal has always spearheaded digital advancements to support new and emerging models of care. So we’re really excited about the progress of the GMDP programme. Here at the Northern Care Alliance we have a really agile approach and some great new technology. With the GMDP we’ll also have the first ever NHS open platforms to support these and help us drive our digital agenda forward even more.

John Llewellyn

Director of Digital, Northern Care Alliance


We are already using this technology to support Greater Manchester’s Covid-19 emergency response, making it possible for services to quickly share vital information and provide new services like community hubs with volunteer coordination. Looking ahead, the possibilities created by building this new digital platform are ground breaking. By digitising old paper-based processes and helping connect data, many of our most vulnerable people can get more joined up support across the region, improving the lives of citizens and making savings.

The launch of the shared care record plan pilot for frailty and dementia in Tameside and Salford will mean, for the first time, we get bi-directional flow of information across health and social care organisations.

Phil Swan

GMCA’s Director for Digital

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