London hospitals in UK-first health data exchange

Two London trusts have become the first in UK to establish data sharing between their Cerner Health Information Exchanges, covering a population of 1.3 million people. Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust went live on with the connection 12 July, with clinicians in both acute hospitals able to view a summarised care record from the other site. The visible information for each trust includes discharge summaries, diagnosis, medications, investigations and results. Niall Canavan, Homerton Hospital's director of information technology, said the next step was "to open this data to any contributing partner organisation in east London". Charles Gutteridge, Barts' chief clinical information officer, said the move had been "relatively simple to do, as Homerton also used the Cerner Millennium system, but a really big step forward".