Clanwilliam Group Acquires Dictate IT

Medical correspondence and clinical reporting specialist looks to support growth and find synergies with other businesses in the health investor’s rapidly expanding NHS division

Dictate IT, a company founded by doctors to support the production of medical correspondence to make it easier for organisations to deal with patient data, has become part of the Clanwilliam Group.

The company, which provides digital dictation, outsourced transcription, and speech recognition services to 27 healthcare providers in the UK and Ireland, will become the 18th company to be supported by the rapidly expanding health tech investor.

Managing director Mark Miller said the move would enable Dictate IT to expand its reach, invest in its solutions, and work with other companies in the Clanwilliam Group NHS division.

Being part of a bigger group will give us the ability to increase the investment we have been making in reaching new customers and improving the type and quality of solutions that we offer

Joining Clanwilliam Group will also give us a fantastic opportunity to work with compatible businesses, and to form strong and supportive partnerships that will benefit healthcare organisations, their staff and patients.

Clanwilliam Group is a global provider of healthcare technology, headquartered in Dublin, that launched an ambitious mergers and acquisitions strategy in 2014.

It recently secured funds for further expansion through a €200 million debt placement with Alcentra, which will be used to refinance existing facilities and to finance near term acquisition opportunities. A further €100m of follow-on capital is earmarked for future growth in order to accelerate the Group’s global Mergers & Acquisitions ambitions.

The NHS division has been a particular focus for activity this year. Obsidian Healthcare Group, a provider of communications and medical education and training, and Informatica Systems, a provider of primary care predictive analytics, also joined the group in 2018.

Clanwilliam Group emphasises that, unlike private equity investors, it holds companies “for the long haul”. It has never sold a business and says it will never go public.

Chief executive Howard Beggs said: “Our approach is to find companies that fit with our ethos and vision, which is to be innovative, caring and committed to making sure that healthcare professionals, patients and their families benefit from the work we do.

“Dictate IT is an excellent fit with that ethos and it will add real and tangible value from its expert knowledge, customer base and market-leading products.

“We have done a lot of work to develop the NHS division this year, and next year we will be looking to make the most of the synergies between the companies in it. Dictate IT will be a significant component of that strategy.”

In addition to its recent acquisitions, Clanwilliam Group’s NHS division includes Medisec Software, a clinical correspondence solutions provider to the NHS, and maxwell stanley consulting, a specialist in clinical coding and data quality.

Miller said he was enthusiastic about exploring the possibility of working with both firms as NHS organisations looked to advance the paperless agenda and extract knowledge from the data that they hold.

“We have the most accurate medical speech recognition and language processing technology currently available in the UK, and this move provides us with an opportunity to offer it to more companies within the Clanwilliam Group and so to get it to more clinicians, immediately,” he said.

Dictate IT were advised by Silverpeak and Lewis Silkin .

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Clanwilliam Health Expands Availability of Healthcare Solutions to help support the COVID-19 Response

Plans include expansion of eScript, an electronic prescription notification service and an accelerated rollout of video consultation system for consultants and GPs

 

Friday 20th March 2020 – Healthcare technology company, Clanwilliam Health, today announced the national expansion of its electronic prescription notification service, eScript, in an effort to help Irish GPs and pharmacies as they seek to deal with the impact of COVID-19 here in Ireland. The company also announced plans to accelerate the roll-out of its video consultation service for private consultants and GPs to allow them to consult with and triage patients without bringing them into their clinic. In recognition of the current healthcare crisis, these services will be made available for free to GPs, Consultants and pharmacies throughout the coming months.

The eScript service has undergone extensive testing by Clanwilliam Health through a network of 705 GPs and 445 pharmacies who now use the service day-to-day. The eScript service safely sends a secure notification of the prescription details directly from the GP’s computer to the patient’s chosen pharmacy allowing that pharmacy to start preparing the prescription before the patient gets there. An automatic text message can also be sent to the patient once the prescription is ready for collection. With the need for social distancing and many people nervous about going to shops and pharmacies, this solution can help people get their prescription fulfilled without the need to handle the script or to stand around waiting in a pharmacy environment.

In a further effort to support patient care, Clanwilliam Health is also making the move to accelerate the availability of video consultations for consultants and GPs in Ireland. This new feature within the Company’s healthcare focused software systems will enable consultants and GPs to conduct remote video consultations with their patients through their software system. This means that all video consultations are securely conducted within the software which already maintains a digital record of the entire patient medical history including previous consultations, prescription details, treatment records, and allergy information.

This new functionality was released to 300 medical consultants this week. Plans to accelerate the rollout have been put in place so that the service is available to all consultants and GPs during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate the best social distancing practices for all patients, particularly those in high risk categories. The next phase will make the service available to over 50% of GPs in Ireland in the weeks ahead, in turn serving over half of the patient population in the country. Clanwilliam Health expects the service to be available in all its products within a matter of months.

“The impact of COVID-19 is widespread across the country and we know that during this time our healthcare professionals are under enormous pressure. While the focus is on flattening the curve and stopping the spread of the virus, there are still people who need contact with their medical professionals to treat other minor illnesses and in other cases support them with existing conditions. Through the range of services we’re announcing today we want to help the healthcare sector at this time, and particularly GPs and pharmacists, to help them meet their patients’ needs while still practicing the advice of social distancing.”

– Eileen Byrne, Managing Director of Clanwilliam Health

For further information please visit www.escript.ie and www.clanwilliamhealth.com.

Liverpool implement Bluespier Trust-wide as part of Aintree merger

Bluespier has been kept as system of choice for orthopaedic trauma, virtual fracture clinics and theatre scheduling as longstanding customer Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust merges with Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Following the successful forming of Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and discussions across clinical teams on best practice, Bluespier software is now used to manage orthopaedic virtual fracture clinics, trauma cases and elective theatre scheduling across all three hospital sites. This is in conjunction with the organisation’s EPR system.

The already well-used Bluespier Trauma Board has moved from the Royal Liverpool University Hospital site to Aintree University Hospital to manage the orthopaedic trauma cases that require admission via the regional trauma unit.

Bluespier Virtual Fracture Clinic has been extended across to Aintree University Hospital to provide a streamlined approach to managing fracture patients across Merseyside.

Broadgreen Hospital continues to utilise Bluespier’s elective orthopaedic waiting list and scheduling functionality to support it receiving all orthopaedic elective cases across the Trust from late November.

Nearly 100 staff across the Trust were trained by the Bluespier training team to ensure staff across all three sites were confident in using Bluespier as part of their care delivery. All training, software configurations and set up was completed in just 10 working days.

Stuart van Rooyen, Managing Director of Bluespier, said: “We are delighted to see these two organisations merge into one, streamlined and effective NHS Trust which will give patients in Merseyside a consistent and cohesive care journey.

“The Trust merger deadlines were incredibly time-sensitive so we knew we had to deliver an effective configuration and training programme in a very short timescale.

“We are proud to be ongoing software partners with the organisation in trauma, theatres and outpatients and look forward to continuing our strong relationship with managers, clinicians and administrative staff.”

Clanwilliam Health and Swiftqueue launch online booking functionality for Irish GP patients

We are delighted to announce that we have launched online appointment booking for GP patients in our Socrates system. We have partnered with Swiftqueue to enable Irish GP practices to accept online bookings from their patients for the very first time. This means that patients can now book an appointment with any GP using the system via their phone, tablet or computer as easily as they would order a takeaway, bank online or book a flight.

The below video explains the partnership as well as some of the benefits that it will offer to users:

Swiftqueue power online bookings for healthcare professionals. They have been providing digital healthcare scheduling solutions to organisations like the HSE and NHS for the last 9 years and the system is used in Sites across Ireland, the UK, the US and Canada. This experience has helped to develop Swiftqueue into a complete on booking solution that is now integrated directly with Socrates GP so that patients can book their appointments online.

Online appointment scheduling can help to reduce:

  • Phone call traffic
  • Patient waiting times
  • Administration costs
  • Time spent by practice administration staff managing appointments

Click here for more information and to sign up for the service.