Programme CORTISONE

November 14, 2016

Programme Update and Industry Engagement Day

21 November 2016 – London

A Programme CORTISONE – Programme Update and Industry Engagement Day will be held on 21 November 2016 10.00 – 15.00 (Registration from 09.30) at techUK, 10 St Bride Street, LONDON EC4A 4AD.

Programme CORTISONE’s vision is to deliver a sustainable, integrated, cohesive and enduring information capability that will fully and effectively support the delivery of evidence-based medical, dental and healthcare outputs, in order to achieve the Aims of the Defence Medical Service (DMS).

The primary objective of the CORTISONE programme is to introduce coherence across the breadth of the Defence Medical Service’s information and to enable seamless interoperability with the information systems of partner and other supporting organisations, principally the NHS structures of the home nations. This in turn enables the DMS to achieve their clinical outputs in a fully informed, efficient and effective manner, and to maximise the return on investment in clinical research programmes and projects.

The programme is based on five Themes. However, the first round of procurement will initially be based on Theme 1 (Health Information Exploitation) and Theme 2 (Healthcare Delivery) to enable the Authority to deliver a ‘minimum viable service’ to transition from the existing service by April 2019. The procurement will utilise a lot structure based on component products / services. The lots have been derived from detailed user requirements and a logical architecture, specifying the groupings of functions and components required of the business / clinical capability and these will be explained further at the Industry event but include an Integrated Electronic Healthcare Record and other clinical services.

The provisional lot structure is as follows:

Lot 1 – Integrated Electronic Healthcare Record (iEHR)
Lot 2 – Integrated Reporting and Data Analytics
Lot 3 – Primary Healthcare
Lot 4 – Dental Healthcare
Lot 5 – Mental Healthcare
Lot 6 – Occupational Healthcare
Lot 7 – Imaging (electronic Radiology Management System)
Lot 8 – Rehabilitation Service
Lot 9 – Management Services

The key output will be the interoperability between all elements of every delivery solution. The solutions must also provide effective navigation of data and deliver a rich source of intelligence and analysis to promote better healthcare. The developed data services must have appropriate controls on access and usage. Contractors are required to deliver COTS products, licences and technical support.

There will be no bespoke software development as part of this initial round of procurement. CORTISONE’s principle will employ an evergreen COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) first approach to simplify procurement and reduce the costs / time of implementing upgrades as standard releases can be applied without need for additional customisation. This approach ensures that the core health record remains separate from (though related to) defence-specific information and can therefore be readily transferred to / from NHS or other provider systems as and when required, with the military element remaining within the DMS information domain.

To provide an Integrated Electronic Health Record service the MOD is looking for a COTS platform that is:

Reliable: Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week with minimal downtime
Fast: Information needs to be retuned almost immediately, regardless of location or channel
Accessible: Information needs to be obtainable through multiple devices, even in the most extreme environments and conditions in deployed base scenarios
Secure: MOD data must be protected and secure regardless of location or device
Easy to Use: Information must be found easily through intuitive, yet powerful interfaces
Open Standards: Information must be available to be integrated utilising common API Standards
Integration: Integration must be provided by API interfaces agreed to MOD standards
COTS: Applications and API are to be common with minimal bespoke code modifications
Constantly Evolving: Provides the foundation for continual enhancement and addition of new functionality

This Industry Day forms part of Programme CORTISONE’s market assessment phase. Its purpose is to give an overview of the programme and its scope and to provide further detail around delivery approach – lot structure, procurement strategy and architecture approach – and encourage communication between SMEs in the marketplace. There will also be the opportunity, utilising ‘breakout’ areas in the afternoon, for industry to ask questions of the CORTISONE Programme Team and an opportunity to provide written feedback to our approach after the Day, which will inform potential future procurement.

Due to limited spaces it is suggested that you select two representatives to attend the Industry Day. It is recommended that one attendee should be of a technical / architectural background, and the second from a business / commercial background. A webinar of the Industry Day will be available to both members and non-members of techUK who cannot attend in person. Registration is open to all.

If you would like to join our community and read more articles like this then please click here

health Programme CORTISONE