NHS Trust Becomes First UK Client Using Microsoft Amalga for Healthcare Aggregation

As what is done here in the US, Amalga will be integrating and aggregating data with existing software systems that are already in place. Amalga has basically 2 different applications that are provided, one a full complete solution which includes medical records and the entire system from top to bottom and the second application which integrates and combines systems that are already built and in place. The second system is what is sold in the US and this is also the road the NHS trust has chosen for obvious reasons as they have a current infrastructure built with Cerner.

Last year I had some time to sit down and talk with Steve Shihadeh from Microsoft Health Services (who is mentioned here) and he did a pretty good job of explaining how all of this works. One item we talked about was the Wisconsin Health Information Interchange and why they selected Amalga and how it’s working for them, they like dashboards for easy access.

Steve Shihadeh, VP Microsoft Health Solutions Group – The Amalga Software Solution for Aggregating Hospital Information (Interview)

The video below shows Amalga’s use in Wisconsin.

I have quite bit posted here about Amalga and use they keyword in the second search box above for some instant links for additional information, it works fast. BD

This is also one more step to bring HeatlhVault closer to a reality for use as a Personal Health Record for the citizens of the UK, and there has been quite a bit of discussion in this area of late with using either Google Health or HealthVault to maintain and store personal health records. BD

Milton Keynes NHS Foundation Trust has become the first UK customer for Microsoft’s healthcare data aggregation platform.

It has bought the Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS), which combines the features of a portal and business intelligence product, to provide a single real-time view of ten clinical and business systems.

Among the core systems the trust will integrate is Cerner Millennium, which was implemented by the foundation trust in 2006.

Trust IT director David Powell told E-Health Insider that Amalga UIS had been chosen because it was a proven product that offered a flexible way to maximize the value of data from the trust’s existing systems.

Powell said another important consideration was that the trust will be able to easily build the dashboards and views of data it needs in-house, as they evolve.

Steve Shihadeh, vice president of the health solutions group at Microsoft, said Milton Keynes was typical of the complex hospital with quite sophisticated systems that Amalga UIS was ideally suited to.

He said the best way to think of Amalga UIS was as an “enterprise data aggregation platform for healthcare.” The product is also compatible with Microsoft’s HealthVault personal health record platform.

“In the next 12 months we hope we will be making an announcement about bringing HealthVault to the UK,” said Shihadeh. “From Amalga to HealthVault is a natural connection.”