Citadel Health will reshape connected pathology services for more than 2.5 million patients across the Birmingham and Solihull area each year after being chosen to implement and operate its innovative Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) across eight key sites.
The unique Evolution vLab LIMS will transform pathology services across all sites operated by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, providing a fully-managed, multi-site and multi-discipline LIMS supporting the activities of all pathology areas.
University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is one of the largest teaching hospital trusts in England, treating more than 2.2 million patients each year from a regional, national and international population. UHB employs more than 20,000 members of staff, with more than 2500 beds and 70 operating theatres across the four main hospital sites.
BWC is the first specialist women’s and children’s Trust in the UK,committed to providing the highest quality, world-class care, women, children andtheir families through its specialist care at its Women’s and Children’s hospitalsand through specialist mental health care for 0-25 year-olds– a unique service provided through its Forward Thinking Birmingham Partnership and its Parkview Clinic for inpatient mental health. Home to some of the country’s leading teaching centres,supporting over 641,000 visits from patients each year, the busy 6,000 strong team includes globally-respected surgeons, doctors, nurses, midwives, allied healthcare professionalsand scientists providing some of the most advanced treatments,investigations and diagnostics, complex surgical procedures and cutting-edge research, to deliver great care today and develop even better care for the future.
The new LIMS will help align the move towards an Integrated Care System (ICS) across the region, in line with best practice responses seen in systems such as the nationwide NHS Wales move to a fully connected service. It will enable increased testing capacity and efficiency, improve safety and quality outcomes, provide a comprehensive data capture functionality and enhance delivery of complex integrations, improving turnaround times.
The platform will provide unprecedented connectivity across health care areas by connecting a host of departments across the sites, including microbiology, cellular pathology, blood transfusion, blood sciences, toxicology and genetics. The solution will integrate with existing capabilities and support the transition of data, services, workflows and functionality to ensure the delivery of safe, timely and high-quality clinical care to all patients.
Citadel Health’s successful tender follows the health tech leader’s recent appointments to transform and future-proof pathology networks throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria and across all NHS Wales trusts and NHS Scotland boards.
Stephen Lynch, Executive General Manager at Citadel Health, said:
“We are excited to be embarking upon this partnership with Birmingham and Solihull ICS, linking together pathology services for England’s largest population outside London. It’s very encouraging to see Birmingham and Solihull accelerating moves towards better integrated care.”
Craig Webster, Director of Pathology at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“We’re very proud of the quality of care we provide and are continuously seeking ways to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients. With this LIMS solution by Citadel Health, we can increase our testing capacity and workflow efficiency, delivering welcome quality and safety improvements.”
Matt Boazman, Chief Officer for Strategy & Innovation at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“As a specialist provider of cutting-edge care, having the latest and best pathology services is essential. This investment will make our systems even more efficient and help improve the experience of our patients and those we care for across the region and the country.”
Impact by the numbers
- 2.5m+ patients
- 8,600,000 Haematology, Chemistry and Immunology tests processed
- 850,000 Microbiology and Virology tests processed
- 94,000 blood products issued
- 90,000 Biopsy samples and tissue moved during operations processed
- 26,000+ staff
- Eight locations networked
Challenges
- Multiple legacy LIMS requiring consolidation
- Need for greater collaborative working sites
- Multiple sites with complex needs
- Complex patient population
Benefits of Citadel’s LIMS
- Collaborative working across multiple Trust sites
- Standardisation of workflow and data
- Cuts out expensive and redundant middleware
- Excellent system stability and performance
- Advanced bidirectional interfacing with equipment and systems
- Increased automation / paperless integrated automation across all divisions of labs