Northern Ireland HSC and Sectra team up for digital health diagnostics programme

The Health and Social Care (HSC) service in Northern Ireland is to transform the way in which diagnostic services are delivered as it brings together millions of digital patient images in a single system, provided by Sectra.

Called NIPACS+, the programme will see every trust across Northern Ireland break down silos of imaging information to help enhance care and support timely diagnoses. It builds on more than a decade of work in the original digital archiving programme NIPACS with Sectra’s solution, which has allowed the HSC to digitise and connect its radiology and pathology services.

With the single imaging system, Northern Ireland’s HSC healthcare professionals will be able to access images from a range of disciplines including radiology, cardiology, oncology, obstetrics, endoscopy, medical photography, nuclear medicine, dentistry and ophthalmology.

The NIPACS+ programme responds to recommendations in a 2018 Northern Ireland DoH strategic framework for imaging services that set out to transform how imaging services are planned and provided. It called for NIPACS to be expanded into new clinical areas, and for a single RIS/PACS to be available across all acute sites, integrated with Northern Ireland’s care record systems.

Procured by Northern Ireland’s Business Services Organisation, the programme will draw on the entirety of Sectra’s enterprise imaging technology suite and enable Northern Ireland to manage approximately two million examinations a year.

The initiative will support the creation of enhanced clinical networks called for in the 2018 framework. Regional networks of care focused around specialities such as cardiology and obstetrics are expected to make better use of specialist expertise and to help to standardise and improve access to imaging services for patients across Northern Ireland.

Specialist sites, for example the major trauma centre or neurology unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital, will be able to review images more easily before patients arrive, in some cases informing decisions on where best to treat a patient.

The programme will support the creation of diagnostic hubs and the development of training facilities. Workforce flexibility and the ability for healthcare diagnosticians to report on images captured anywhere in the region will be complemented by home reporting capabilities, which is expected to support recruitment and retention as well as workload balancing across Northern Ireland.

Picture: Belfast Health and Social Care Trust chief executive and NIPACS+ senior responsible owner Dr Cathy Jack, Business Services Organisation chief executive Karen Bailey, DoH permanent secretary Peter May, interim NIPACS+ programme manager Joanne Allison and senior project manager Laura Molloy.

Published on page 7 of the December 2022 issue of RAD Magazine.