Integrated Software Solutions Ltd, the specialist laboratory management software developer, today confirms that its OMNI-Lab Newborn Screening management software now meets the requirements of version 3 of the HL7 healthcare messaging standard which, in conjunction with SNOMED-CT coding, is set to become the norm for electronic messaging systems in the NHS.
Alex Anderson, Managing Director of International Software Solutions Ltd, explains: “The UK Newborn Screening Committee and the NHS Connecting for Health recently released version 1 specification for Newborn Bloodspot Messaging based on HL7 v3. Although traditionally an HL7 V2.x-based organisation, we wanted to ensure that we were compliant with the national standard and the requirements of such leading providers as Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH). OMNI-Lab Newborn Screening now has the ability to be a spine-compliant outbound messaging system. SNOMED codes have been added to the Newborn Screening result codes for the newborn screening programme at BCH and those are being output within messages exchanged by the hospital and the Child Health Authorities.â€
Russell Denmeade, Chief Biomedical Scientist/Computer Applications Manager at BCH, commented: “We have been using FTP for messaging between BCH and Child Health for a number of years. However, two of the Child Health Authorities were moving over to a different system called TPP SystmOne. Those authorities specified that they required the new result messaging to use not FTP but HL7, with SNOMED CT encoding, so that it would be spine compliant. At fairly short notice, Alex Anderson and his team at Integrated Software Solutions, working with people from TPP, got the new messaging format up and running within just a few weeks. This allowed the project to be completed quickly enough to prevent it being put back; it was a pretty timely piece of work by Alex and his team.â€
