Partner Article

Market-leading Cloud technology acquisition boosts NHS digital health ambitions for Advanced

British software and services provider Advanced has acquired Docman, the market-leading electronic document management, workflow and information sharing platform provider to primary and secondary care services. The acquisition further accelerates Advanced’s Cloud-first strategy and supports its ambitions to help the NHS in transforming health and care through technology in line with the ‘NHS 5 Year Forward View’ and ‘NHS Digital Policy’.

Advanced has been recognised as a well-established supplier to the NHS for over 20 years, with many innovative projects developed in partnership with NHS England and NHS Digital, most recently the notable virtual health assistant app, Ask NHS. Bringing Advanced and Docman together will further strengthen Advanced’s position in the market as a leading technology provider and help drive a more secure, efficient and connected health and care sector in the UK.

Docman is the first choice for primary and secondary care providers looking to manage paperless clinical documents. Its technology is responsible for maintaining one billion detailed records and documents for over 40,000,000 patients in the UK, managing over 3,000,000 items of weekly patient correspondence. Adding to Advanced’s presence in Urgent & Unplanned care, Out of Hours and NHS Community & Mental Health Trusts, Docman has more than 5,400 GP practices, 115 NHS Trusts (hospitals) and 178 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) within the care community benefiting from improved patient care through its solutions.

The organisation will integrate directly into the Advanced’s Health & Care Business Unit and will be headed up by Ric Thompson the current Managing Director of Docman. Ric has been instrumental in creating and leading a model of excellence resulting in hyper growth and brings a heritage of experience from the technology sector. Not only will this ensure that Advanced is able to harness his team’s incredible talent, skills and network, but will drive the rapid go-to-market strategy of the combined and strengthened healthcare offering from Advanced.

It is widely reported that the NHS faces unprecedented pressures on services combined with stringent targets for the delivery of such care creating a major driving force to source and implement technology marking a new digital era for the NHS. The Government plans to digitise NHS services and make them paper-less by 2020, as part of its NHS 5 Year Forward View, and Advanced feels strongly that its technology can reshape the healthcare system to positively impact the way care is delivered to people living in Britain.

“The NHS is undergoing a digital transformation that will impact us all and is constantly looking for new ways to innovate,” comments Gordon Wilson, CEO of Advanced. “Adding Docman’s acclaimed Cloud software to our own strong portfolio of healthcare solutions means we have a more comprehensive offering to support the NHS in achieving its goals. We have automation to drive efficiencies, the Cloud to deliver connected patient services, and augmented intelligence innovations and virtual health assistant apps to encourage self-assessment and self-care significantly alleviating some pressures on the system. At such a transformative time, this acquisition quickly boosts our position and today’s news is therefore incredibly exciting for us and both Docman and Advanced’s existing customers.”

Docman is a complementary acquisition of a market-leading healthcare business which creates a significantly enhanced presence for Advanced in NHS care providers.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Advanced .