CIPHA and Care Alliance win Best Use of Data at HTN Awards

The Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership’s Digital Programme, Graphnet Health, and the System C and Graphnet Care Alliance, are pleased to announce that the Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action (CIPHA) programme, has won the Best Use of Data award at the HTN Health Tech Awards 2021.

The programme was funded through NHSX to support the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership in developing a population health platform, to manage the COVID crisis and drive COVID recovery. To achieve this, the programme team worked closely with Graphnet, to rapidly implement (within a remarkable 90 day period) a population health management platform, CIPHA, that helped to ensure a steady flow of securely stored real-time data feeds from all local NHS and Social Care providers and national data sets to deliver consistent, coherent and actionable dashboards across the region.

Data sharing that has made a real difference, as it helped to predict, identify and control outbreaks of COVID-19 across Cheshire and Merseyside quickly, which supported the Liverpool mass testing pilot that informed UK Government policy. Additionally, CIPHA was also utilised to help the national Events Research Programme in matching Covid test results with ticket purchases for pilot events taking place in the region, to ensure any transmission of the virus was properly monitored, and to inform research to support with building a Covid safety-net to allow events to reopen across the UK.

In fact, due to the programme’s success (measured by its benefits and value) within the first year it was funded, NHSX have since funded a CIPHA expansion programme based on the CIPHA blueprint, with a population coverage of circa 17 million. To date, this expansion programme has showcased and blueprinted over 42 use cases, illustrating how the platform can be utilised, for adoption and adaption by other Integrated Care System (ICS) areas. With CIPHA now not just helping to inform population level planning and the targeting of direct care interventions solely within Cheshire and Merseyside, but across the whole country. Whilst the programme is also helping to facilitate collaborative working across this wider population (of circa 17 million) on new use cases, such as a COVID predictor dashboard and building a collaborative research platform.

Following the awards announcement, the efforts of CIPHA, the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership’s Digital Programme and Graphnet have been praised by industry leaders:

Prof. Iain Buchan, Public Health and Clinical Informatics researcher helping data and algorithms work at scale for societal gain, @profbuchan, said: Sincere thanks to the wonderful @CM_CIPHA team for delivering #DataSavesLives, often against the odds. Pandemic Informatics is not for the faint hearted but has moved the needle on civic data cooperation for getting the right information to the right people at the right time.”

Joe Rafferty, Chief Executive at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, @JR_MerseyCare, said: “Congratulations to all involved. This has been a brilliant example of collaboration @CM_CIPHA. Remarkable deployment with @GraphnetHealth and a small group who have worked tirelessly.” 

Jim Hughes, Senior Responsible Officer for CIPHA at the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership, @JimH234, said: “A brilliant and dedicated team from across health, public health, social care, academia, and tech systems suppliers - well done all.”

The 2021 HTN Awards ceremony was held on 7th October, and the awards help to share and celebrate digital teams, programmes, innovations and suppliers, that have made a measurable difference to care and services. You can find out more about the other 2021 HTN award winners, which include Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Cheshire East Council, by clicking here.

Buckinghamshire
Lancashire and South Cumbria
Northamptonshire HCP
Surrey Heartlands
Manchester Community Central
Cheshire and Merseyside