NHS – Diabetic Retinopathy

Project description

Diabetic retinopathy is a complication of diabetes that affects the eyes. It is caused by damage to the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

This system assists in the early diagnosis and treatment of patients with diabetic retinopathy. A patient, after taking pupil-dilation drops, is positioned in front of a camera which images the retina. The images are transmitted across the NHS network to remote ophthalmologists, who perform the diagnosis. Messages from those ophthalmologists are then transmitted to the patient’s GP, and a prompt care plan can be determined.

That is what makes the screening scale. The operator of the equipment need not be a trained ophthalmologist, and a mobile clinic can reach remote and rural areas.

We were one of the lead developers for the National Screening Programme for Diabetic Retinopathy. We took overall technical lead and responsibility for rebuilding an existing screening product so it spoke HL7v3 under the National Programme for IT.

Working directly with the other three accredited suppliers, we were the sole technical authority on behalf of our client: management of NHS expectations, and expert knowledge of systems integration and HL7 messaging, through compliance testing, technical audit and review. We migrated the existing client data and business rules onto the new SNOMED codes.

Subcontracted by Clinisys Group.