ReStart and Better Announce a Partnership to Improve Data Interoperability Within the NHS

ReStart and Better have signed a partnership agreement to improve interoperability between NHS organisations, regardless of their digital maturity.

ReStart will supply interoperability services in support of Better’s Digital Health Platform to simplify and accelerate digitalisation across the NHS. ReStart’s deep experience and capabilities will support data acquisition through its Interoperability Matrix, IMX.

The partnership will provide health and care professionals with greater access to health data which will support them to make decisions based on real-time information about their patients. Better’s Digital Health Platform and low code tools environment will help Trusts and Integrated Care Systems to rapidly transform. Through the use of openEHR specifications alongside FHIR and other open standards, data will be shared in a vendor-neutral format, allowing it to be used for direct care, analysis, research, and innovation – all in real-time.

Supporting clinical systems in their interoperability environments and guaranteeing data quality is a priority for ReStart. The expertise of the IMX support team has enabled them to successfully and proactively monitor hundreds of NHS clinical systems. The team ensures that critical systems are up and running, and receiving the vital information health and care professionals need so that they can make informed decisions about patients at the point of care.

The importance of interoperability was recently highlighted by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock. In his keynote speech at Digital Health Rewired 2021, he emphasised that the inability to access and share data properly presents a barrier to research and hampers the life-saving role that data can play in achieving greater patient outcomes.

“Removing this barrier and separating the data layer from the application layer would enable the data to be stored separately and securely in the cloud, establishing a consistent data platform across the NHS.”

Mike Symers, Managing Director of ReStart, explains: “With our emphasis on Open Technology – providing an open health and care ecosystem, NHS organisations can progress existing strategies while also feeling confident in their ability to react and respond to both ongoing changes in policy and technology-led challenges, such as the pandemic. ReStart has over 15 years’ experience navigating the complex NHS landscape. We can provide genuine interoperability through IMX to help Better share data securely across organisations and boundaries.”

Matthew Cox, Managing Director of Better for the UK and Ireland, said: “Data is the life blood of any health care organisation and getting immediate and complete access is crucial to better decision making. To do that successfully, we are very pleased to be working alongside ReStart to help accelerate the data transformation needed.”