News Archive
Athena Maternity Information System
K2MS Portal - Medical Grade Touchscreen PC
K2MS Guardian V2 - Full electronic capture of patient information during childbirth
K2MS Online Fetal Monitoring Training System
K2MS Expert Datacare - Cord Blood Gas Analysis
K2 Delighted to Welcome Birmingham Women’s Hospital as Newest Customers
December 2010.
K2 would like to extend an extremely warm welcome to Birmingham Women’s Hospital who have become the latest Trust to join the ever increasing K2 family. K2 have been awarded the tender to supply a full GuardianTM and AthenaTM maternity management system to the Trust, comprising of 23 PortalsTM, due to be commissioned from the first quarter 2011. The obstetric management system, created by the seamless integration of GuardianTM and AthenaTM, will be able to provide an EPR for the whole of pregnancy. Data will be collected from the whole of the maternity period and will provide an automated, paperless and comprehensive management system, essential for freeing valuable resource and providing an invaluable auditing tool.
Birmingham Women’s Hospital is one of only two Trusts in the country solely dedicated to women’s healthcare, the other being Liverpool Women’s Hospital who also use GuardianTM. Established in 1968 Birmingham Women’s Hospital delivers 7000 babies a year and is proud to be a centre of excellence for specialist healthcare for women and their families. With this in mind, K2 are especially pleased that Birmingham Women’s have chosen the K2MS GuardianTM and AthenaTM packages to help maintain their high standards and to deliver and support the complete solution for their management of maternity services.
Full details of K2MS Athena TM
Full details of K2MS Portal TM
K2 Achieves Successful Launch of WebConnect™ Project
October 2010.
K2 has successfully launched its webConnect™ project enabling secure, remote access for clinicians to view the entire labour ward activity and full maternity records for all patients over the internet, in real time using a standard web browser; CTGs, partograms and notes.
WebConnect™ enables clinicians to stay in touch with events on labour ward no matter where they are in the world. No special software is required to be installed. This information is accessible securely from any computer, anywhere, anytime, with appropriate log on credentials.
This application has been specifically developed for clinicians with on-call duties to facilitate communication with labour ward staff any time of the day or night. WebConnect™ can be used to discuss a specific case or it can be used by senior staff to have a central station view of labour no matter where they might be.
WebConnect™ is an important risk management tool for the labour ward.
K2MS Guardian webConnect™ – CTG view
K2MS Guardian webConnect™ – ‘Chalkboard’ view
With such sensitive and confidential information being displayed remotely webConnect™ is, of course, completely geared with security in mind. Log-in is username and password protected, and the system is covered by standard encrypted protocols (e.g. SSL). The system is also covered by display time-outs, thereby reducing the risk of non-authorised personnel using a session left idle by a user.
The webConnect™ system is now successfully operating live at a number of sites and is available to any current K2MS Guardian hospital.
Full details of K2MS Guardian TM
K2 Announces Partnership with Advanced Power Components PLC.
November 2010.
K2 is pleased to announce it has signed an agreement with Advanced Power Components Plc giving them UK distribution rights for the K2MS PortalTM. The PortalTM is a medical grade PC that has been successfully created by K2 in consultation with clinicians and experts in industrial design and human-computer interaction. The PortalTM offers an opportunity to bring the power of information technology into the clinical environment sensitively and ergonomically, and K2 are delighted that APC will support distribution of its acclaimed product via its APC Contech Unit, which specialises in the distribution of specialist data input devices. www.apc-plc.com
The K2MS PortalTM is a purpose built, fan-less, highly integrated medical grade panel PC that facilitates communication and meets the needs of patients and clinicians at the point of care. It is a versatile touchscreen PC that complies with the regulatory safety requirements for medical equipment and systems, thereby aiding the reduction of bio-contamination, and with optical fingerprint identification it ensures a fast, reliable and secure logon, reducing the risk of unauthorised personnel accessing the system.
Dr Robert Keith, K2 Director, says of the PortalTM: ‘We set out to design K2MS PortalTM with high integration, ergonomics and clinical utility, generalisable across all areas of patient care. We feel we have achieved our design goals and with a distribution agreement with APC we aim to see PortalTM make a big impression across the whole NHS.’
K2 is confident that the partnership with APC will be a positive and invaluable relationship, and are looking forward to working with Mark Broadhead (General Manager) and all the team at APC Contech.
Full details of K2MS PORTALTM
The K2MS PORTALTM, our stunning new medical grade touch screen panel PC.
This Stunning New Product has been successfully created by a team of clinicians and experts in industrial design and human-computer interaction. The K2MS PortalTM offers a considered solution to bring the power of information technology into the clinical environment. It is a purpose built panel PC offering the latest in touchscreen technology.
Full details of K2MS PORTALTM
K2 is now officially a Microsoft Certified Partner
June 2010.
K2 is proud to announce that it is now officially registered as a Microsoft Certified Partner company. Following outstanding results by the company’s developers, K2 were honoured with this prestigious status in June 2010, following a rigorous eligibility process.
The Microsoft Partnership network is a program awarded to those companies that can show high levels of proficiency and expertise within the development of the ever evolving and expanding Microsoft platform. K2 is thrilled to have successfully achieved the status of Certified Partner following successful completion of the necessary conditions, and have thus been awarded the competencies for Web Development and Software Development. This achievement is a credit to K2’s developers who have proved their skill and have thus enabled the company to be awarded the above competencies for works related to the Guardian and Athena Maternity Managements systems and, in the case of Web Development, for works associated with the online Training Package. The high degree of expertise shown in developing these systems was crucial to being awarded the accolade of Certified Partner.
Developers also achieved top marks in the relevant qualifying examinations, and were able to demonstrate an exceptionally high degree of Microsoft technical ability and expertise. These outstanding results were then corroborated and supported by three exceptional references from East Lancashire Hospitals Trust; National Maternity Hospital, Dublin and Liverpool Women’s Hospital covering their immense satisfaction with the K2 packages and services to which they subscribe.
The next stage for K2 is to aim for Gold Partner status which represents the highest degree of Microsoft technology competence. This level of partnership not only involves further stringent and direct testing of the companies developers; it requires the production of a comprehensive and progressive customer satisfaction survey. This is currently under discussion and it is hoped it will become a key component of an on-going part of K2’s quality assessment.
INFANT study - Now live in 5 hospitals
*INFANT has now recruited 13,645 mothers!*
INFANT® is being introduced into clinical practice as part of the largest maternity study to be funded by the NHS (http://www.hta.ac.uk/). The study is being run independently from K2 by Professor Peter Brocklehurst and the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Oxford University. This £6m study provides a unique opportunity to objectively evaluate this new technology before its widespread introduction.
The INFANT® study aims to recruit 46,000 births from 12-16 hospitals in UK and Ireland and will have the power to determine whether INFANT® can reduce clinical errors in CTG interpretation and reduce poor outcomes.
Further details of the INFANT® Study can be found at https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/infant.
Want to know more about INFANT?
E-Health Insider Awards
K2 is thrilled to announce that they have been shortlisted as a finalist in the E-Health Insider Awards for 2010, despite a record breaking number of entries. This is a joint award with East Lancashire Hospitals Trust who submitted a successful application registering the K2MS Guardian Fetal Monitoring and Athena Maternity Management Systems in the category "Excellence in Healthcare Information Management".
K2MS GuardianTM and AthenaTM are maternity systems with an emphasis firmly on clinical utility. GuardianTM provides the full electronic patient record (EPR) for labour and delivery and AthenaTM provides an EPR across the whole of pregnancy and neonatology.East Lancashire Hospitals Trust has worked as a co-development partner with K2 and have been instrumental in furthering the clinical development of K2's GuardianTM and AthenaTM systems. Rineke Schram (Consultant Obstetrician and Medical Director), Liz Martindale (Consultant Obstetrician and Lead Clinician for Implementation of K2 system), Rak Patel (Consultant Anaesthetist), Melanie Robinson and Angela O'Toole (Matron Midwives) and Lorraine Eaves (Deputy Head of IM&T Projects Implementation & Training), Salim Badat (Head of IM&T Strategy) have all played a key role in ensuring the systems meet the needs of clinicians first and foremost.
K2 is extremely proud to have been shortlisted and it is thanks to the hard work and dedication of the whole team that the implementation of the GuardianTM and AthenaTM Maternity systems has been such a success. The integration of these systems at the two ELHT sites, Blackburn and Burnley, has been able to provide "comprehensive obstetric records comprising antenatal, intrapartum, and immediate postnatal care ", via the full electronic capture of all patient data during the whole maternity period.
The management of healthcare information is a high priority for ELHT who delivered 6542 babies across the two hospitals in the period 1st April 2009 and 31st March 2010. The K2MS GuardianTM Fetal Monitoring and AthenaTM Maternity Management Systems are installed across the two sites and, from the close working relationship we have developed, we can now, with confidence, say that the system delivers a complete, paperless, secure and accessible solution for all clinicians. The systems also provide invaluable support for all the different services associated with the maternity process such as Sure Start, Child Health Dept, Breastfeeding Support, Newborn Screening amongst others. We are proud to say that the K2MS GuardianTM and AthenaTM "meets the needs of its users at the point of care", and continuing development and communication is a priority to ensure the constant advancement of services offered and improvement of best practice.
The E-Health Insider Awards winners are to be announced at a lavish dinner to be held at the prestigious Connaught Rooms in Convent Garden, London, on the 6th October. The K2 and ELHT teams most heavily involved in bringing about this fantastic success are excited to be attending, and look forward to announcing the results imminently!
From L to R: James Meeson (Innovation Director),
Matthew Serle (K2 Project Manager),
Dr Robert Keith (Director),
K2 Medical Systems
From L to R: Rineke Schram (Consultant Obstetrician & Medical Director),
Rak Patel (Consultant Anaesthetist),
Salim Badat (Head of IM&T Strategy),
Liz Martindale (Consultant Obstetrician and Lead Clinician for Implementation of K2 system),
Lorraine Eaves (Deputy Head of IM&T Projects Implementation & Training), ELHT
AthenaTM - Patient Information Management System now Live at ELHT.
Following extensive co-operation between K2 and co-development sites Royal Blackburn and Burnley hospitals, K2 are thrilled to announce that the AthenaTM maternity project has been successfully launched and is live.
East Lancashire Health Trust, already an enthusiastic user of K2MS GuardianTM for labour and delivery, approached K2 to develop Athena in order to provide an EPR across the whole of pregnancy and neonatology. EHLT have been instrumental in furthering the clinical development of K2's AthenaTM maternity system and, it is thanks to the teams at Royal Blackburn and Burnley hospitals, that AthenaTM has been developed to become an invaluable obstetric management system.
With an emphasis firmly on clinical utility, and with a strong desire to provide comprehensive and contemporaneous notes at the point of care, AthenaTM has been developed to integrate seamlessly with K2MS GuardianTM. Data is captured from the whole maternity period, antenatal, intrapartum and immediate postnatal care, enabling the provision of an automated, paperless, comprehensive auditing system; invaluable for freeing clinical resource and the achievement of high CNST recognition. This obstetric management system was successfully rolled out at Royal Blackburn in October 2008, with Burnley following in June 2009. Since this time, the benefit for clinicians and staff at the two sites has been immeasurable and the system is now relied upon by many supporting services such as Child Health, Sure Start and Newborn Screening amongst others.
Further advancements of the AthenaTM system are currently being developed to encompass additional community support and also to extend AthenaTM to Neonatal Intensive Care. Longer term possibilities are also under review but it is hoped that the co-development partnership between K2 and ELHT will continue to further both organisations' vision of ensuring "Athena meets the needs of its users at the point of care".
Full details of K2MS ATHENATMK2 Fetal Monitoring Training System to be launched in Flash.
October 2009.
The long awaited release of the new Flash version of the Fetal Monitoring Training System is now upon us with the release of it's Beta version.
With improved graphics the chapters are much more user tempting. Some new additions include page numbering so you know what page your are on and how many pages are in that section. We have also added a few new features to the training system website, including custom filters, so administrator view users according to percentage of completion, or number of sim cases completed in designated time period.
Once our Beta testers have given feedback we will look to release to hospitals in the second half of this year.
We are also working on a Beta release of the Training Simulator in Flash.
Full details of K2MS Fetal Monitoring Training System
K2MS GuardianTM launched into Mater Hospital - Australia
September 2009.
Mater hosted a launch event for the GuardianTM project at the Mater on Thursday 10th September 09. The event attracting significant media attention with all four national TV news crews and journalists from Queensland's newspapers attending. According to Martin Milne (the Mater's Communications Manager), this has only happened once before, when the new Mater Mother's Hospital was opened by the Prime Minister.
The birthing suite was a sight to behold with four television cameras, cameramen, sound recordists, journalists, medical and midwifery staff, Hospital Executives, IT and GuardianTM Project staff crammed into it. There were too many people to fit in the birth suite and they spilled out into the corridors (Steven Parrish can be briefly seen loitering with intent in the corridor).
Jackie Shillingford, the PIRSA project officer, did a brilliant job at demonstrating the platform (with only 24 hours notice I might add). Both Jackie and Fiona Brady (the PIRSA Project Manager) stayed back Wednesday night to rehearse the presentation. The mother to be in the video, Briony, is a friend of one of the Badger project officers and deserves a medal for playing patient in the video.
All who attended were very impressed with the platform (even the IT department remarked how well built it was). The new screens that Matt has compiled and Steph's brilliant illustrations looked amazing – all of the midwifery staff who attended can't wait to get the system up and running.
Included below is a Courier Mail newspaper clipping about the launch: Peter Hunt.
Courier Mail newspaper Article - Hi-tech wizadry saves babies!
Full details of K2MS GuardianTM
Full details of K2MS PortalTM
Fetal Monitoring Training System launched in America
May 2008.
David Shine Incorporates K2 Medical Systems in the United States
Mr. David Shine joined K2 Medical Systems with the mission of establishing an American business unit, incorporated in the United States. He is serving as the General Manager of this business unit.
Dave brings 20 years of experience in healthcare product development, and prior to that he was an engineer in the aero-space industry for 3 years.
Before joining K2, he spent five years directing engineering, and helping grow a startup company that developed and implemented enterprise wide patient throughout products. Prior to this position,
Dave spent nearly 15 years with the Corometrics division of GE Medical Systems, where he served as a Lead System Designer and Engineering Manager responsible for the development of Maternal Fetal Monitors.
Dave completed his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of New Haven in 1985, where he also did graduate work. He has authored 6 patents, 5 of which were issued for clinical innovations in Maternal Fetal Monitoring. While with GE, Dave became Six Sigma certified in the DMAIC and DFSS disciplines.
He currently resides in Hamden, Connecticut with his wife Kathy and two children; Christopher (14) and Theresa (13).
The US market comprises more than 4,000 hospitals, delivering 4 million babies each year. Dave is looking forward to carrying the success of K2 into this market, beginning with the Fetal Monitoring Training System.
K2 Medical Systems USA
Full details of K2MS Fetal Monitoring Training System
K2 Win the Queen's Award for Enterprise
May 2008.
K2 Medical Systems were very proud to be granted the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the category of Innovation for our contributions to improving maternity services.
This is the most prestigious innovation award that can be bestowed on a UK company and reflects the tremendouse efforts made by all those who have contributed to our success over the years; Researchers at the Plymouth Perinatal Research Group (K2's origin), University of Plymouth and Plymouth Hospital's NHS Trust who gave us the opportunity to start the Company, the local Plymouth institutions who supported us and of course our employees who breathed life into the vision. We would also like to acknowledge our customers and in particular those influential individuals who recognised the potential of what we were doing and backed us in their own hospitals. We enjoy a terrific relationship with our customers not least because we are all motivated by the same ambition, to improve maternity care.
Reception at K2
We were presented with the award at K2 offices by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Devon, Mr Eric Dancer CBE JP. The presentation was also attended by The High Sheriff of Devon, Mr Anthony Mildmay-White and Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Plymouth, Cllr David James and Mrs Diane James. We are most grateful for their great support and interest in our company.
Rob receives the Rose Bowl from the
Lord-Lieutenant of Devon
Reception at Buckingham Palace
We were also honoured to attend a reception given by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace. Also in attendance was the Duke of York, The Princess Royal, The Duke of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra.
From the Palace it was off to the Ritz for a Champagne cocktail and then on to Gordon Ramsey's at Claridges. A great day!
James and Matt meet the Queen
K2 win more K2MS Guardian orders
