The Orion Health UK and Ireland Customer Conference 2022 came to an end with a summary of the day’s themes by Gary Birks, EVP Europe. He reminded the 100 or more delegates in Bristol that the over-arching theme of the day had been how to mature shared care records and to move towards population health management.

“We heard about the three pillars of population health management, as defined by NHS England (infrastructure, intelligence and intervention) and where Orion Health fits in each,” he said. “We also filled in some of the gaps. We talked about infrastructure, with input from AWS about the fundamentals of good data architecture, and Nicole Allan talked about the complex but essential role of APIs.

“We touched briefly on the intelligence side, when Bruce Horne talked about analytics. It was interesting to hear from Katharine Guthrie at CHIE about how CHIE is using Discover to visualise patterns of use and it is worth reflecting on whether we could apply the same thinking to clinical pathways. We also heard about some of the analysis tools that are coming in the near-future, such as Smart Search, which is very exciting, and shows the value of the Orion Health platform in supporting clinicians and patients.

“Patients were the focus of Anne O’Hanlon’s presentation, when she talked about fragmentation, and how we can overcome it using new thinking, like the Digital Front Door. And we also heard from Bruce about how these ideas can be joined up with products that customers will already be familiar with, such as Engage, using developments to Forms and making the most of Collaborative Worklists. It’s encouraging to see how these projects can be brought together, and how we can take what already exists and add value to it.

“In that context, the presentation by Southern Cross Healthcare was great. It showed how the implementation of new technology is not an end point, but the starting point on a journey during which it will evolve. Importantly, we also talked about intervention in the form of pathways. Ben Wilson talked about the mud and potholes on the journey, but also about how they can be overcome, keeping in mind the citizen perspective that Anne gave us.”

Working in two exciting sectors that make a real difference

Overall, Gary said the day showed that Orion Health and its customers are working in an exciting sector, and one that makes a huge difference to society, health and care, and the people who work in and depend on it. “We think we are fortunate to work in two of the most exciting industries on the planet: technology and healthcare,” he said. “Nothing is more exciting than contributing to tackling the challenges that the health system is facing with clinical experience and patient experience.

“So, I want to thank everybody in this room for being there for the healthcare technology journey, because it is a long journey, but we are making progress along it, and we are joining the dots for clinicians, patients and citizens.”