Products
The Interweave portfolio provides a Shared Care Record and Population Health Management platform, consisting of the
following products.
The product set
The original Interweave platform was designed and built by the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record as part of the first wave of NHS England’s Local Health and Care Record Exemplars programme. It was subsequently adopted by three further ICSs and a number of others have expressed interest.
The concept was born out of a desire to:
- Provide better health and care staff with faster access to vital information about the person in their care
- Provide citizens with access to their information and encourage them to be more involved in looking after their health.
Shared Care Record
Because of the collaborative nature of the partnership, developments undertaken in one ICS are made available for use – at no charge – by the other ICS customers, thus spreading the workload and increasing functionality.
The solution comprises four components – Exchange, Connect, Portal and Analytics – as illustrated on our product page. This page details how the platform works for both providers and consumers.
Standards
The Interweave FHIR Implementation Guide was originally developed using CareConnect STU3 standards. The partnership is now working to R4 standards based on UK Core.
The Interweave product is also conformant with the Core Information Standard Version 2.
Shared Care Record
Population Health Management
How it all works
Interweave Exchange acts as a hub connecting – on one side,the contributors of datafor example an EPR in a Trust, -with the consumers of data which could be a direct interface to an operational application or via an integrated context launch of the Interweave Portal.
The benefit of the Exchange is that it enables collaborative care for participating organisations, leading to:
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- improved outcomes for patients
- reduction in unnecessary tests and procedures
- an empowered health and care workforce
- time savings for staff
In terms of the technology, this there are a number of benefits delivered by the implementation of an architecture which is best summarised as a vendor neutral federated approach to sharing data between care providers. It is;
- an NHS-led approach based on national FHIR protocols
- an open standards-based development
- does not require a data lake, as the federated approach means that the data stays where it was originated, as does the control and governance
- a flexible architecture allows for data to be displayed in any technically capable user interface
- a solution which utilises secure Google Cloud Platform accredited to process patient identifiable data
- supporting the use of real time data for authorised secondary care purposes to facilitate Population Health Management
Interweave Connect – originally known as the FHIR Appliance – is a standards compliant server which, following data mapping procedures, converts existing data from source systems into FHIR resources and provides this data to the Exchange to facilitate a shared care record. It acts as an intermediary between local provider systems – such as Trust EPRs or GP systems – and the Exchange.
The flexibility and control of Connect means that it can be used for connecting in data from a range of sources – from local Trust EPRs, Social Care data sources, to national services such as GP Connect and also from patient based apps. The partnership approach means that once a data mapping exercise has been created from one EPR, it can be utilised for other instances of that same EPR within the Interweave footprint, increasing consistency, reducing duplication of effort and hence cost.
Connect comprises;
- A complete implementation of a FHIR Server with a fully compliant FHIR Store
- Support for synchronous queries, but also for asynchronous bulk extracts and event-driven subscriptions
- Flexible endpoint configuration
- Facility to configure dual endpoints for external vs internal access
- Entirely configurable choice of listener ports
- Options for http or https (including mutual authentication)
- Options for message authentication (jwt, api-key)
- An audit log of all activities (available as FHIR AuditEvent resources)
- The option to automate registration of patients with a regional PIX server
- Solution which can runs on Linux or Windows Server 2019, using either Postgres or MSSQL database
- Dockerised deployment for ease of installation
Interweave Portal is a web app which provides a blended view of the data from multiple sources, via the Exchange, and thereby presents a holistic view of the patient/person for those front-line workers providing direct care.
Although some organisations will build their own user interface, the Portal provides a ready-made alternative which can be used as a standalone app or as an integrated solution, e.g. it can be launched from within a patient record. Known as ‘contextual launch’, this method is preferable as it removes the need for separate logins and passwords and was a requirement set out in NHS England’s Shared Care Record Minimum Viable Solution 1.0.
In addition, Interweave have developed a Google Cloud-based Analytics platform to pull data through Exchange – deidentifying it and making it available for population health and other secondary uses.
“Interweave allows me access to all the medical information I need seamlessly at the time I need it. My patients expect (quite rightly) that I know what investigations and plans their specialist teams have put in place for me to effectively and safely co-ordinate their care. I have numerous examples of when Interweave has improved the standard and safety of care I can offer my patients – that is what it is about for me – patients and quality of care.”