Healthcare better connected with integrated BridgeHead and Forcare solution
ASHTEAD, UK – August, 19th, 2014 – BridgeHead Software, a leader in Healthcare Data Management (HDM), partners with Forcare, the leading provider of software solutions in the Health Information Exchange (HIE) sector. Together, the two companies are offering hospitals across Europe, the Middle East and Africa a best-of-breed solution that leverages BridgeHead’s and Forcare’s market leading vendor neutral archive (VNA)[1] and XDS solutions respectively.
It is estimated that medical imaging data is responsible for one-third of the total global storage market and is the equivalent of 1.2 billion average hard drives.[2]
Data retention policies, coupled with the growth in the number of patients moving through the healthcare system (which is larger than it has ever been), is resulting in an unparalleled increase in data volumes. In order to manage the cost and complexity of this growing data, healthcare IT leaders will increasingly look for intelligent, vendor neutral data and storage management solutions.
The joint solution from BridgeHead and Forcare enables hospitals to efficiently and cost-effectively provide a data management infrastructure that enables the storing, protecting and sharing of all patient information, from medical images to clinical reports; scanned patient documents to back office files, across the healthcare landscape. The solution will have particular appeal to healthcare environments looking to facilitate data sharing across sites, organisations and/or regions, helping to provide a centrally-accessible and secured registry and repository and ensuring patient data is available to the people that need it, when they need it, for improved care delivery. The solution allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient’s vital medical information electronically – improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care.
BridgeHead’s market leading VNA, which is presently gaining rapid traction throughout the UK, with recent contracts awarded by Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust and Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, is a fully XDS-enabled solution. Forcare is dedicated to providing interoperability solutions based on XDS. Both companies recognise that their specialisms are hugely complementary and have joined forces to deliver a converged best-of-breed solution, particularly in the deployment of larger-scale data sharing networks, such as Health Information Exchanges (HIEs). By combining Forcare’s solutions alongside BridgeHead’s VNA, healthcare data can be securely stored, protected and shared at scale.
The two companies not only feel they have a compelling strategic proposition for healthcare organisations, but also recognise their respective geographical strengths and plan to leverage these in their go-to-market efforts in the coming months.
Jim Beagle, President and CEO, BridgeHead Software comments: “Forcare is the renowned healthcare interoperability specialist and BridgeHead is pleased to be partnering with such an organisation. One of the major challenges healthcare providers face today is how to get timely access to relevant patient data delivered at the point of care. Most clinical applications only provide a ‘localised’ view of the patient. If more information is required in the event of incomplete studies, or additional diagnostic data is needed, this can add significant delays to patient treatment and creates inefficiencies elsewhere in the workflow, with people trying to locate the data. The combined BridgeHead Software and Forcare solution overcomes these challenges and ensures valuable patient information is delivered to the people who need it, when they need it.”
Harm-Jan Wessels, founder and CEO of Forcare, comments: “BridgeHead is the acknowledged market leader for VNA in EMEA and we are the leading independent healthcare interoperability specialist- so, simply put, our products are entirely complementary. Across Europe, we are witnessing ever-increasing collaboration between healthcare organisations. The various stakeholders across these organisations increasingly require the ability to access and share clinical and administrative information pertaining to an individual so that they can provide a better quality of care, in the most efficient manner, and thereby enhancing the patient’s experience. Together, the combination of BridgeHead Software’s VNA and Forcare’s XDS-based product portfolio provides those organisations with an easy-to-use and manage healthcare data access and sharing solution.”
The joint solution is available from BridgeHead Software and Forcare now.
Interactive resources
Healthcare Data Management (HDM) Brochure
VNA Image Availability Whitepaper
What Should the NHS Expect from a VNA Whitepaper
Forcare White Papers
[1] In 2013, in its ‘Medical Enterprise Data Storage – World – 2013′ report, IHS named BridgeHead Software number one in EMEA’s independent VNA market
[2] AGC’s HCIT Cloud Update 2014
About BridgeHead Healthcare Data Management (HDM) Solution
BridgeHead’s VNA is part of its Healthcare Data Management (HDM) Solution that enables hospitals to efficiently manage all of their systems and data, within one environment. BridgeHead’s HDM offers a VNA for DICOM images and a compatible archive for non-DICOM files, featuring a rich policy engine used for Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), and controlling features like encryption and compression. BridgeHead’s HDM also offers comprehensive protection of all manner of data found within healthcare environments, from medical images, scanned patient documents, and patient notes, through to email, PDFs and other office type files.
About BridgeHead Software
With 20 years’ experience in data and storage management, BridgeHead Software is trusted by over 1,200 hospitals worldwide. Today, BridgeHead Software helps healthcare facilities overcome challenges stemming from rising data volumes and increasing storage costs while delivering peace of mind around how to store, protect and share clinical and administrative information.
BridgeHead’s Healthcare Data Management solutions are designed to work with any hospital’s chosen applications and storage hardware, regardless of vendor, providing greater choice, flexibility and control over the way data is managed, now and in the future. For more information, visit www.bridgeheadsoftware.com or follow on Twitter at @BridgeHeadHDM.
About Forcare
Forcare was established in 2006 and is active in the Health Information Exchange (HIE) space. Forcare’s intelligent product suite facilitates HIE within and across organizational boundaries and is based on international IHE XDS standards. Today, Forcare has a leading position with large scale installations in hospitals both in EMEA and North America and is one of the few true independent solution provider in this space.
For more information
Visit www.bridgeheadsoftware.com
Follow the BridgeHead Software blog
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on LinkedIn
Like BridgeHead Software on Facebook
Follow BridgeHead Software on Google+
