England and Wales Cricket Board Signing Deal With BridgeHead

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the national governing body for all cricket in England and Wales, signed a deal with BridgeHead Software Ltd to provide its Independent Clinical Archive (ICA), HealthStore, to manage the storage, protection and sharing of players’ medical images.

Fast and easy access, and sharing of all medical data pertaining to team members, means clinicians can quickly determine the best course of action in the event any injuries are sustained – ensuring players are at optimum fitness, and back on the pitch as soon as possible.

HealthStore will provide the ECB with a central, standards-based repository, initially for radiology images, but extending to all of their players’ medical images in the future. The independent clinical archive enables medical data to be shared with different groups of specialist clinicians and team doctors that have permission to view it. This means that, in the future, a player’s MRI scan taken following an injury during an overseas tour could be examined by onsite clinicians, uploaded into HealthStore, then reviewed in collaboration with the UK team doctors at home, to determine the best treatment plan.

As the national body for cricket in England and Wales, the ECB must adhere to stringent data protection policies to protect valuable player data as Damian Smith, head of IT, ECB explains: “We have responsibility for our players’ medical data from every form of cricket for men and women. The far-reaching consequences of this information falling into the wrong hands means that we are very focused on compliance to athlete data privacy and security. Protecting valuable player information is much easier once you have all of your data in one location. BridgeHead’s HealthStore will allow us to aggregate medical data from across the England and Wales Cricket Board, eliminating data silos, so it’s protected in the event of corruption, loss or data breach.“

Previously, the ECB had been securely, yet manually, storing and managing their medical image data across different applications within the ECB. But, they realised that they needed a single system that would provide a central repository for all medical image records – eliminating data silos and helping to create a 360-degree athlete record.

HealthStore will also enable the ECB to analyse historic medical data to monitor patterns in injuries and help them to develop technique and best practice to ensure players’ long-term involvement in the sport with minimal interruption due to injury.

Smith continued: “The management of elite sport medical data commands the best solutions. We are continually seeking ways to improve the way that we do things. As a result, we have been on a hunt for the right solution to store, protect and share our clinical images. BridgeHead came to us and showed us that the solution we really wanted did exist and that they were the right people to deliver it.“

To further enhance the protection of ECB’s medical data, HealthStore’s powerful zero-footprint viewing capability enables clinicians and team doctors to view their players’ images without leaving any data on the local device, ensuring privacy and security will not be compromised. In addition, clinicians may view image data remotely on any device, regardless of compute power.

Talking about the growth of BridgeHead’s customer base to include elite sports, Jim Beagle, CEO, BridgeHead, comments: “When the ECB first approached us, we knew straight away that our tried and tested approach to storing medical data in a central repository, accessible to those that need it, at the point of care, was going to prove to be exactly what they needed. On the face of it, our NHS and healthcare customers seem very different from an elite sports body, such as the ECB. But, dig below the surface and the need to provide secure access to the latest medical images, wherever the patient or clinician might be, are exactly the same. As such, we knew HealthStore was as applicable to the ECB as it has proved to be for thousands of public and private healthcare organisations. As a UK-based company, we are excited to be delivering real tools that will enable the ECB to continue to provide world-class support to the players and clinicians of English and Welsh cricket.“

Smith concludes: “We have been incredibly impressed with BridgeHead’s ability to understand the unique pressures and opportunities the ECB faces, and come up with a solution that will enable us to improve the management of cricket, and, as a result its reach and enjoyment in England and Wales.“