OREANDA-NEWS. The National Health Service (NHS) England (Greater Manchester) ("NHS GM") and Hitachi, Ltd. announced that they have agreed to start Proof of Concept projects (POC) for the use of informatics to improve healthcare.

The NHS GM and Hitachi since April 2013 have been planning activity to leverage IT and Informatics technology in improving the quality of healthcare together with the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, North West e-Health, Hitachi Consulting Co., Ltd. and Eagle Matrix Consulting Co., Ltd.

To realise and deliver the projects planned over the past six months, starting from the 1st of October, Hitachi and the NHS GM will be starting two POC in the Manchester borough of Salford. The first is around developing a federated data platform to facilitate the collaboration of medical information in order to enable the provision of any number of new services that leverage the highest levels of privacy and security. The second is around diabetes care in the form of a lifestyle improvement programme enhancing a programme that is already being tested in the Manchester borough of Salford. The aim is to by way of this POC build upon the current programme more efficient, more effective and more accessible by utilising IT.

Going forward, as part of this project, the NHS GM and Hitachi will be working together in developing an informatics platform that enables security and analytics technologies to deliver several new high quality healthcare services, including lifestyle improving programmes targeted towards tackling Diabetes, further enhancing the quality of life and population health in Manchester.

Furthermore, by providing comprehensive solutions to healthcare problems within Greater Manchester, Hitachi will be looking to leverage this partnership into developing a new informatics ecosystem by expanding similar services to other regions around Greater Manchester and eventually to the rest of England.