The North Middlesex University Hospital and IT provider 6PM PLC have teamed together to launch a new IT system that will improve the care and experience of HIV patients.

CareSolutions™ Climate-HIV is based on many years of clinical experience. Doctors and nurses can collect and see all the information they need to treat the patient, in a format that is user friendly and follows their work pattern. Within one system, they can see test results and the patient’s history, prescribe medication, document events and write letters to GP’s. Previously, they would have used a combination of paper records and various older IT products.

CareSolutions™ Climate-HIV is a joint venture between 6pm PLC and North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust. It illustrates how the North Middlesex is using innovative ways to improve patient experience, quality and outcomes.

Climate-HIV was invented by Dr Achim Schwenk, who has been an HIV and infectious diseases consultant at North Middlesex since 2003 and an expert physician for over 20 years. The new system is based on an in-house product he introduced in 2005, but it has been completely redesigned with the 6PM team using the latest IT technology.

Achim said: “Patients with HIV often require a range of tests and can suffer from a wide variety of complications. If that is all stored in different IT systems and paper records, you need a lot of time to review all the details. I have more time talking to my patient, because I have all the information on the screen with Climate-HIV. It is safer because we won’t miss important details, and the patient can see the benefits of their treatment on the screen with some helpful graphs. Climate-HIV fits to the doctor’s actions like a glove fits to a surgeon’s hands.”

Steve Wightman, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, 6pm Holdings PLC commented: “It has been a great pleasure to work together with the doctors, nurses and receptionists at North Middlesex Hospital for our development team. Their dedication and commitment has helped us to design this new solution on time and on budget.”