Making an impact in health and care – An interview with Lynette Ousby
In February this year former Director at EMIS and Alcidion, Lynette Ousby accepted the role of CEO at ReStart. Lynette was born and raised in the North West and akin to many women in digital health, she is not one for self-promotion! A cursory glance through Lynette’s Linkedin Recommendations however, gives a delightful insight into the energy, authenticity and credibility of her work and values.
Impact and Purpose
Lynette shares her rationale for the move to ReStart:
I think for anyone working in health and care we like the idea that we’re making an impact in some way. During my 15 years in the industry, it became clear that any software product is only as useful as the data contained within it. I’ve seen first hand how some suppliers don’t always unlock data to make it available for clinicians – it’s not that they won’t do it, more they can’t do it. It was a conscious decision that my next role would do something to help fix this – to use innovative ways to unlock data and be able to move it around – anyway here I am!
A proud workforce
Like Lynette, ReStart has been somewhat under the radar in making an impact in health and care. Established 20 years ago by Mike Symers, the company has amassed a highly skilled and loyal workforce of over 30 full-time technical staff, spread across the UK. ReStart staff are often embedded within NHS Trust technical teams to support a myriad of interoperability and data migration challenges.
Lynette checks in regularly, both in person and remotely, with her specialist team, “The memory bank amassed over the last 20 years by our team definitely sets us apart. We’ve helped so many Trusts with data projects during really challenging times; be it Covid, EPR deployments, Trust integration replacements, shared care record initiatives. Our workforce has seen the evolution of software and systems; our constant has been the ability to react to this changing environment and it is this knowledge that drives our ability to adapt quickly to any data challenge”.
Resetting the strategy
After a review of the business, ReStart now has a clear 3 pillar strategy:
- Remain the no.1 provider of integration and interoperability to the NHS. Agnostic to software providers gives a ‘trusted advisor’ status by both NHS customers and third-party suppliers.
- Continue to innovate managing data. ReStart has an ear to the ground on the latest standards, national NHS demands, as well as local needs. The IMX platform, designed to ‘consume’ data and make it useful, can mass monitor 100’s of data points whilst raising alerts of data issues. The platform can also be used to replicate an EPR or PAS, providing a mini health record in the event of system failure or a new deployment.
- Provide the highest level of support to the NHS. Over 50% of NHS Trusts in England have selected ReStart to deliver some level of support for data integration. With 24/7 support to over 20% of NHS Trusts, ReStart is tailoring a range of services to support care providers irrespective of the amount of data they have, where the data resides and the bandwidth of internal IT resource.
Lynette continues, “With ReStart the opportunity to make a difference lies at the heart of the data. Not just making it available for clinicians at the point of care, but ensuring it’s joined up and ensuring it can be used appropriately for ongoing research. We go to great lengths to monitor the movement and security of data and assist in making it accessible to the right people at the right time.”
Impacting community
Lynette is proud of her roots and continues to live in Burnley with her husband and three children. Home to Burnley FC in the Community, an award-winning charity of Burnley Football Club, ReStart selected to partner with them and support a wide range of initiatives across the country such as education in deprived schools, food banks, veteran programs and dementia care.
Part of the rationale for selecting Burnley FC’s charity was their reach. As part of the national football league, they can work with other areas of the country on charitable endeavours - sharing successes and delivering local projects where similar support is invaluable.
Lynette concludes, “We wanted to work with a charity that could genuinely help empower communities. The partnership works as it allows our staff to volunteer to work in any location and get involved in their own local community projects. We’ve recently been heavily involved in a STEM education programme – it was an uplifting experience to go into a local school in my area and help share my knowledge about the technology landscape and the incredible opportunities in digital health that the North West can offer now and in the future”.
ReStart delivers integration and data migration projects to health and care; supporting a wide range of systems including Rhapsody, Ensemble and Health Connect integration engines. The company has vast experience in developing data interfaces with suppliers such as Cerner, Lorenzo, McKesson, IPM, Epic, CaMIS and System C. ReStart has worked with 49% of NHS Trusts, providing 24/7 integration support to 20% of Trusts and is currently working in over 50% of ICS’s.
Authors
Lynette Ousby
NHS data management and interoperability company ReStart has appointed former Alcidion and EMIS director Lynette Ousby as its first ever chief executive officer.