1NPEx User Group 2019Our biggest event of the year at the Royal College of Pathologists

4Tech Update: PID MappingFind out about how the NPEx team solved a national challenge for patient identifiers

2Development WorkshopThe NPEx team hosts a complex reporting workshop in Bristol alongside CliniSys

7In Discussion With DeploymentsMeet our new Technical Project Managers

5ICS UpdateGet the latest on our Genomics workshop and Microbiology testing success

3New ConnectionsOur New Deployments, latest Go Lives, and an exciting EQA update

6THIS Spotlight: Peter Howson, Commercial Director of The Health Informatics ServiceThe people behind the NPEx partnership

8EQA: Our Fastest DeploymentNorthampton General Hospital’s deploy-ment with UK NEQAS Birmingham Quality

9The Team: Mat BarrowMeet X-Lab’s new Managing Director, Mat Barrow

NPExNEWSLETTER

November 2019Issue 13

1 - NPExUSER GROUP 2019On 18th September 2019, the annual NPEx User Group was held in London at the Royal College of Pathologists. Over 100 delegates from across the UK NHS, private laboratories, Europe and Australia gathered to learn and share knowledge about NPEx and its contribution to the future of the pathology industry. The event held at a national hub of pathology and the calibre of speakers in attendance reflected the crucial position NPEx holds in digital healthcare.

industry by enabling interoperability through our EQA and ICS programmes. Finally, a Technical/Operations Stream consisted of a series of workshops and demonstrations about how the NPEx service is developing to meet the needs of users and support electronic reporting for Microbiology, Histopathology, and Genomics.

Debbie Hunter, Head of Service at The Health Informatics Service, has been attending the event for the past four years and expressed how delighted she is to see so many customers on the agenda who are willing to share their NPEx experience. Lucy Mairs, Delivery Manager at X-Lab explained that this year’s User Group ‘shows how useful and important NPEx has been to pathology so far and will be for years to come. From building the service around the needs of its users through our ICS programme to expanding its service across the world, the benefits of NPEx are growing with our user-base.’

The morning session was filled with presentations which opened up discussions on the issues facing the healthcare industry. This year’s keynote speaker, Jo Martin, the President of the Royal College of Pathologists, spoke about how the pathology industry needs to adapt to the world around it and implementing NPEx is one of the ways it can do this. Tom Lewis, the Clinical Lead for Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT), discussed the importance of interoperability and highlighted how NPEx is a tool for achieving this. To end the session Laszlo Igali, Co-Chair of the Pathology Informatics National User Group, explained how NPEx is an essential tool for pathology and a necessity for diagnosing the challenges faced by the pathology industry.

The rest of the day was split into three different streams. The first stream was Open Networking, where users were able to discuss possible solutions for laboratory workflow challenges with members of the NPEx team. A Strategic Stream then offered users the opportunity to learn how NPEx is tackling the challenges of the pathology

Thank you to all our speakers and users for attending this year’s User Group. We hope it was a great learning experience that showcased the role NPEx plays in the development of pathology services.

To read more about the day and access the presentations, please visit the NPEx website.

2 - DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPOn 9th October, the NPEx team faciliated a workshop in partnership with CliniSys and representatives from NPEx laboratories. The workshop, which focussed on complex reporting through NPEx, was held at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

David Gibbs, Pathology Service Director at North Bristol NHS Trust, introduced the day as an opportunity to achieve an understanding of how we can deliver electronic requests and reports for Microbiology, Blood Transfusion, Histology and Genetics through NPEx.

NPEx, CliniSys and some of our users are now working together to find a digital solution for the transfer of complex requests and reports. One of the biggest outcomes of the discussion was the agreement to open lines of communication for testing routes for Microbiology and Histopathology between NPEx labs.

NPEx has been continuously working on its ICS programme to further develop its service for users. This collaborative workshop was an opportunity for the NPEx team to make further strides towards achieving one of the programme’s objectives: to enable the transfer of complex data sets through NPEx. By the end of the programme, NPEx will allow structured messaging for complex reporting within a varied landscape of LIMS.

Hayley Milsom, Account Manager at X-Lab, reflected on the success of the day: ‘the workshop was a great opportunity to get stakeholders from different disciplines together, especially since it was the first time that we had CliniSys there with us. The engagement and discussions in the workshop were very effective in helping to plan for the future direction of NPEx.’

3 - NEW CONNECTIONS

New Connections

Unilabs

Go Lives

North Bristol NHS Trust

Barnsley and Rotherham Integrated Laboratory Services

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust

The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

NHS Tayside

WEQAS

The NPEx team are pleased to announce that WEQAS signed up to NPEx this September. They are an External Quality Assurance (EQA) provider who deliver global Quality Assurance Programmes in Laboratory Medicine. WEQAS provides over 40 EQA Programmes, including external audit, performance analysis and an educational advisory service, which means they have the ability to assure the quality of a lab’s entire process. NPEx users will be able to electronically receive requests and send results for WEQAS EQA schemes in the future.

5 - ICS UPDATEGenomics Workshop

To precede the NPEx User Group 2019, a Genomics Workshop took place at the Royal College of Pathologists on 17th September 2019. The workshop was arranged with the support of

Adrian Peak, Head of Programmes and Projects at Great Ormond Street Hospital, to open a dialogue between the Genomic Laboratory Hubs and NPEx.

The workshop was focussed on enabling electronic requesting and reporting with sample tracking for non-whole genome sequencing samples, which make up 95% of the NHS’s genomics workload. The session’s main outcome was the decision for NPEx to explore mapping against the openEHR specifications, which are used to create standards, and build information and interoperability solutions for healthcare, when requesting and reporting for Genomics. However, as this technology is not yet ready to use, the group decided to focus on sending PDF attachments through NPEx in the short term – capability which NPEx already has.

Using electronic health records in the future will integrate NPEx in working towards semantic interoperability. A state of semantic interoperability would mean NPEx messages would be structured to be understood and replicated by both humans and machines which would make their contents clinically useful as a driver for both patient safety and service improvement.

Microbiology Testing

NPEx has successfully set up an interface to CliniSys WinPath (CSV over FTP) LIMS for Microbiology with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Following this development, the NPEx team are actively pursuing Microbiology testing using HL7 messaging. In addition, a group of labs using LIMS such as DXC Telepath and DXC Apex are testing with Nottingham across Microbiology.

If you would like to be involved, please email npex@x-labsystems.co.uk.

Thank you to Karim Premji, Pathology Systems Manager and CliniSys Domain Lead (System Admin) at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust for his dedication and hard work towards achieving this progress with complex reporting.

4 - TECH UPDATE:PID MAPPINGAs NPEx’s nationwide rollout gained momentum,deployments across NHS Scotland’s laboratoriesrevealed some issues with the location of patientidentifiers (PID) in HL7 messages and their validity. Some of the issues encountered were:

— The sending LIMS was putting invalid CHI and NHS numbers in the associated fields.

— The sending LIMS was putting the NHS number in every field and the receiving LIMS was treating the patient number field as a primary identifier when not all labs provide one.

The NPEx team have been working withrepresentatives from the Scottish HealthBoards to develop a PID mapping solution whichovercomes these challenges and circumvents themismatches and rejections of patient identifiers.

This new feature allows performing labs to configure rules to determine which identifiers can be put in each identifier field, which fields must have a value and which fields are not accepted at all. By default, this feature is turned off but instructions on how to configure PID mapping can be found in the user guide on the NPEx forum. As this feature touches patient data, it is recommended you contact NPEx support to discuss the issue before configuring. As Scotland’s rollout draws to a close, solutions such as the PID workaround mean labs can begin to look towards optimising their use of

6 - THIS SPOTLIGHT:Peter Howson, Commercial Director of The Health Informatics ServiceIn September 2019, Peter Howson, who is The Health Informatics Service’s newest addition to the NPEx team, took up the role of Commercial Director for THIS and Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT). Peter’s main role is to help drive the growth of NPEx and to ensure that the solution can enjoy sustainability in the forthcoming years.

Peter explained that his key responsibility is ‘to sit on the NPEx Management Board and support the NPEx team commercially. I work alongside Debbie Hunter, who is Head of Service for NPEx, to support her on a day-to-day basis. She regularly liaises with customers and I need to provide the strategic direction from a commercial perspective for these relationships.’

Joining NPEx at a key time of growth as the ICS programme accelerates, the NPEx EQA network continues to expand and the team pursue more private and international opportunities, Peter has a key developmental role to play. For him, ‘there are two elements to NPEx’s development. We need to make sure our existing users are getting the maximum use out of NPEx whether they’re performing or receiving tests. But we also want to keep growing our customer base and the NPEx network. We want to increase the number of tests that are available through NPEx and expand our reach to different types of labs alongside those NHS labs we serve.’

Peter Image

Peter has worked on a national scale before working on NPEx. He expressed that ‘previously I was looking after health centres, leisure clubs and gyms across the UK and I had worked with healthcare when it involved GP referral schemes. But this wasn’t on the fully-fledged contract basis I’ve seen with NPEx. But the fundamentals, as far as commerciality is concerned, is very similar, if not identical, in both worlds.’

While Peter’s previous experience might sound very different, he joked that the main challenge of the role is learning all the NHS acronyms. Although ‘it’s a challenge as far as understanding the different components of healthcare work and the way THIS, X-Lab and NPEx all work together, I am understanding that it’s a very passionate world that revolves around people, partnerships and connections.’

Connections are the main thing Peter is looking forward to as his role develops. ‘I’m excited to meet lots of our customers. I’ve only been in the post for two months and the NPEx User Group was an amazing opportunity to do this on an ad hoc basis but I’m really looking forward to formally meeting existing customers alongside potential new users. This is a key part of my role.’

We warmly welcome Peter to the NPEx team and wish him the best of luck as he settles into the role.

7 - IN DISCUSSION WITHDEPLOYMENTSIn July 2019, Sean Parker and Reece Dudley became the new Technical Project Managers for NPEx. Their role is to provide end-to-end project management for NPEx users throughout their deployment.

Speaking with them both, Sean explained that they ‘manage current deployments for NPEx. This involves a variety of different tasks from facilitating technical VPN calls, to ensuring that the project meets deadlines and we can provide the service as quickly and efficiently as possible. In addition to this, we also run the support desk, responding to support tickets and answering phone calls’.

Reece added: ‘we work in collaboration with Nathan, who is a Network Analyst at THIS, to ensure that requests and reports can flow through NPEx to and from a new user’s LIMS. Our role is not just technical, we provide support and training for the laboratory staff who will be using NPEx every day. It’s crucial that our users can optimise the system and we support them in the preliminary stages.’

Support for users, whether they are new or have been using the solution for some time, is a fundamental part of the NPEx experience. Sean explained that their ‘role ensures that customers are satisfied and understand how to achieve the most from NPEx’. Furthermore, ‘attending the

NPEx User Group gave us the opportunity to meet a number of the laboratory staff who we worked closely with during their deployments. It was rewarding to catch up with them about how they’re using the system and how NPEx is benefitting their lab’.

This new role has offered both of them an opportunity for personal and professional development. Reece explained that he has ‘grown in confidence since starting the role. I have developed my professional skills while finding opportunities to put my degree in Computer Science to practical use. As a student on a placement during my degree, it’s an exciting chance for me to discover the career paths that lie in my future’.

Overall, the pair are enjoying being part of NPEx. ‘We can both appreciate that what we do, by helping labs to deploy NPEx, holds projected benefits beyond the lab. We are part of implementing a system that reduces errors and speeds up result times which, eventually, has an effect on clinical care and the wellbeing of patients. It’s very rewarding’.

8 - EQA: OUR FASTEST DEPLOYMENTIn October 2019 Northampton General Hospital completed their NPEx EQA deployment with UK NEQAS Birmingham Quality in record time. In just two weeks, the team in the Department of Biochemistry were able to deploy schemes for Clinical Chemistry EQA and are now benefitting from the service.

Rebecca Beresford-Green, a Clinical Scientist at the hospital, explained: ‘we responded to requests and messages from UK NEQAS straight away which allowed us to make progress quickly’. The main goal of labs is to ensure patient samples are tested efficiently and accurately to allow clinicians to quickly make decisions for patients with the results. This can sometimes mean secondary projects are less of a priority. However, Rebecca emphasised that ‘it’s important to stop what you’re doing and respond to the next step of the process. It only takes five minutes and it means you can progress through the stages quickly. It worked well having someone manage the project who worked from a desk rather than someone who is busy at work in the lab’.

The process was a learning experience for the users at Northampton to utilise NPEx in a new way. For instance, Rebecca told us:

Andy Robins, the Computing Lead at UK NEQAS Birmingham Quality, reflected that ‘the effort Rebecca at Northampton put in is the reason this deployment was so successful. As soon as I sent her requests, she’d work on them. If there were any problems, she’d try and resolve them. Once she’d got one scheme, we did another three and it went very smoothly. We do find that each LIMS has its own peculiarities and different configurations; every deployment, we always seem to find something new. The more work we do, the more we encounter these things and the more we resolve them; the people coming online for NPEx EQA schemes now have a greater opportunity than ever for having a smooth deployment’.

If you’d like to sign up to our UK NEQAS EQA schemes, please email:npex@x-labsystems.co.uk

‘This was the first time we’d used NPEx as a performing lab and it was an opportunity to get to grips with the system and set up new tests. There were a few challenges, for instance we needed to set up creatinine as a referred test and a performing test. Once we’d learnt how, it was easy and worked quickly.’

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9 - THE TEAM:

The start of November saw Mat Barrow join the NPEx team as the Managing Director of X-Lab. One of his key aims is to coach and empower the existing management team and staff to ensure they reach their full potential, both individually and as a team.

‘I’ve tailored my leadership style based on that. I’m really keen to promote trust, ownership and communication within the organisation; I want people to feel that they have the knowledge, tools and support to achieve what they want, the freedom to communicate openly and the right to challenge when they disagree. The team should trust in leadership to maintain a sustainable and exciting business around them.’

On top of his experience and business insight, Mat is currently undertaking a Master of Business Administration (MBA). There have been a number of ideas and approaches he has learnt that he is keen to apply to NPEx.

Mat’s favourite thing about working as part of the NPEx team is the people: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met such a driven, smart and energetic team. I’ve found everybody welcoming and I’ve really appreciated the honesty that people have given me so far with feedback. Generally, when joining a project or company there are some staff issues that need to be addressed, but I’ve been genuinely impressed with the NPEx team’.

The team look forward to seeing this new chapter for NPEx with Mat’s support and guidance.

Mat’s role within X-Lab aims to help further develop the NPEx business strategy. Alongside supporting the NPEx team members, he aims to progress commercial negotiation, strategy, business management and organisational optimisation to further improve NPEx and its service.

After having 15 years’ experience in health informatics, Mat is an asset to NPEx. Within the NHS, he worked on the successful delivery of Spine 2 in 2014. He has also helped Boots, Cegedim, EMIS and Well Pharmacy alongside building successful practices in London and Manchester for Infinity Works.

With his experience in modern software delivery environments, Mat has seen what works well and what doesn’t. When reflecting on his previous experiences he said:

“Mat Barrow, Managing Director at X-Lab

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