Northern Ireland’s health department (the HSCNI) has picked health tech company Tegria and digital health consultancy Cloud21 to support it in its digital transformation programme. The two organisations will help to deliver Northern Ireland’s Encompass programme – a decade long initiative that aims to deliver improvements to outcomes for patients by making it easier for health and care professionals to deliver high-quality and safe care, improved efficiencies and greater collaboration across all care settings.

Under the agreement, Tegria’s US-based experts will work alongside Cloud21 in the UK to support Northern Ireland in implementing a fully integrated electronic health and care record across acute physical services, mental health, community care and social services. It will replace a patchwork of legacy systems and paper-based processes with a complete picture of a patient’s health and social care.

Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) for Health and Social Care Northern Ireland, Dan West, said: “Tegria and Cloud21 stood out because of their strong understanding of the challenges that we face with such a large-scale and radical digital transformation initiative.

“They quickly provided us with strategic leadership at a challenging time in the programme, while health and care systems across the world were dealing with the impact of the COVID pandemic. They brought people who understand large scale implementation and clinical transformation programmes to help us build a more sustainable and resilient service through digital.”

West added: “Together, Tegria and Cloud21 have proven experience of working with our EPR supplier, which has been extremely valuable to bring into the mix. We’ve seen a well co-ordinated and high-quality response, and without them, we wouldn’t have been able to move the programme to where it is today.”

Justin Jozwik, Managing Director – International, Tegria added: “Our experience in the US with the operational and cultural challenges of large-scale digital transformation across health and care systems nationally, combined with Cloud21’s hands-on experience in the UK, means together we are well-placed to support HSCNI’s Encompass programme and provide high quality strategic guidance, as well as the practical expertise that Tegria and Cloud21 are well-known for. We are thrilled to have made our investment in Cloud21 and are now realising the full potential of what we can do together to help advance health systems in the United Kingdom.”

Dr Tony Corkett, CEO, Cloud21 said: “The HSCNI is leading the way in advocating that every technology programme needs equal funding and support for people, processes and change management to be successful, and a national transformation programme of this scale is no exception. We look forward to working collaboratively with Tegria, to drive the Encompass agenda forward in delivering truly sustainable and transformative care.”