FCI Consulting provides advice to organisations that need expert, independent guidance on the commissioning, design, development and delivery of health and care information systems to have the greatest positive impact on patient care.  This includes expertise in clinical informatics and clinical safety.

Our Services

We provide a range of consultancy services tailored to the needs of clients, involving detailed clinical informatics knowledge of:

  • Interoperability and information sharing to support integrated care – information modelling, advice on national and international standards, expertise in implementing integrated solutions, clinical terminologies, such as SNOMED CT.
  • Options appraisals and evaluations – assessing digital health plans and independent evaluations of clinical informatics projects and services.
  • Clinical Decision Support and Artificial Intelligence – advice in situations where it is useful to have an authoritative independent view.
  • Requirements definition and commissioning of clinical information systems.

Why work with us

Our advisors are senior Fellows and Members of the Faculty with many years of experience in clinical informatics who are able to provide impartial advice to NHS Trusts, Primary Care Networks, commissioners and national organisations.

The detailed scope and approach is tailored to each organisation, so we offer a flexible approach for different scenarios. A detailed preliminary discussion ensures that our services are appropriately targeted to achieve their desired outcome.

 

Contact

Contact the FCI Consulting team to discuss how our advisors can use their expertise to support your digital health services: [email protected].

 

Case Studies

Health Data Research UK (HDR UK): knowledge sharing between innovative projects

The HDRUK Better Care Catalyst Programme supports the development of health analytics and data science improvements that can be implemented across the health and care system to benefit patients, the workforce and the public.

FCI worked to improve the sharing of know-how between the Catalyst projects, identifying barriers and enablers and making recommendations to improve sharing. Following our study, HDR UK acknowledged the need that was identified for organisations themselves to help promote the recognition and sharing of know-how, and that this may require culture change, which takes time and will require resources.

As a result, HDR UK is developing an organisation-wide knowledge management strategy.  We also ran a ‘Collaborathon’ to test the sharing of computable knowledge (such as algorithms) between systems as a proof of concept, working with HL7, BCS and other members of the Mobilising Computable Biomedical Knowledge (MCBK) community.

NHS Digital: independent review of GP Data for Planning and Research data set

FCI were commissioned on behalf of the Joint GP IT Committee to undertake an independent review of the payload of the NHS Digital GP Data for Planning and Research data set and the governance arrangements.  FCI drew together a team of experts in clinical terminologies, primary care IT systems and their uses and cyber security, and compiled a report for JGPITC, NHS Digital and NHS X consideration.

 

NHS England: defining information requirements for monitoring and evaluating virtual consultations

FCI assisted NHS England in designing a set of metrics for monitoring and evaluating virtual consultations in primary care for inclusion in contracts with suppliers and to inform the design of an NHS England dashboard.  The project included consultation with GP practice staff and patients and the public using an on-line card sorting approach to obtain views on priorities.

 

Framework contracts

The Faculty has been awarded a place on the following NHS Framework contracts: