07th December 2015
Project management in healthcare
Initially a small consultancy, Carter Holmes quickly grew into providing more comprehensive services to organisations that want to provide agile and innovative solutions to their customers.
To do this, they require additional support and skill set for these complex technology projects.
As well as helping clients with these solutions, Carter Holmes often work with organisations that are based in England, but have their support infrastructure, development environment and databases outside of England. The result of this often means that clients are unable to deploy or use their products because of compliance issues with the IGSoC (Information Governance Statement of Compliance) standard and the Data Protection Act.
Carter Holmes: IGSoC Compliant
Carter Holmes achieved its IGSoC compliance status in March 2014. Its compliance strategy is to provide a fair and lawful processing environment and a governance assurance facility for organisations that wish to provide their services within an NHS compliant environment.
Key in delivering this complete range of service for their clients is a data centre provider that complies with all the relevant statutory and guidance (including the Caldicott Principles).
Equally as important to Carter Holmes is a partner who:
- Shares the same values
- Can provide the best service to their clients
- Will think ‘outside the box’
- They would not hesitate to introduce to clients
A Natural Partnership
Carter Holmes partnered with Sovereign to provide N3 compliant data centre services to their clients from its site in north London. Carter Holmes then manages the governance for all the solutions being provided from the data centre that connect to the N3 network.
As well as the customer focus ethos that both companies share, this facility was chosen for its scalability and resilient services that were a fundamental requirement of Carter Holmes when searching for a data centre partner.
Lisa Holmes, Director at Carter Holmes explains:
‘Our contract with Sovereign specifically governs the arrangements we must have to ensure compliance. Sovereign was not only able to meet all of our current requirements but has also committed to maintaining the compliance standards going forward. We will be working with them through our audit and consultancy services to do this. This is a true symbiotic relationship.’
Carter Holmes is currently supporting clients through this environment by:
- Independently auditing the complete end-to-end solution
- Designing compliant solutions for implementation
In some cases, this is simply relocating a server containing the relevant database to the data centre. However, this can also involve securing and assuring the transfer of information assets and transforming them smartly and quickly to deliver the compliance required by the NHS.
The Complete Service
By having the skillset to manage all aspects of the project, Carter Holmes can ensure the project is delivered on time, to budget and in line with healthcare governance.
Often this is not just about the technical delivery of the solution but also about assisting the client in managing risk, reviewing processes and operating procedures, training and legal commitments as well as their contractual obligations.
Carter Holmes also helps clients to work with the IG leads of their customers to complete IG assessments and risk assessments relating to the hosted systems and operational processes. This ensures a smooth delivery without delays when delivering into the NHS.
Joanna Sedley-Burke, Managing Director at Sovereign comments:
‘Working with Carter Holmes is all about like-minded organisations working together to provide the best solutions for our clients. Sovereign provide the quality and service in the data centre environment whilst Carter Holmes provides the expertise in healthcare and its processes. Carter Holmes was a natural choice for us to best support our clients as well as theirs’.