A quick recap of Inform Health’s 2024 User Conference

Last month, colleagues and customers from across the country came together at IET Birmingham for Inform Health’s 2024 User Conference.

Months in the planning, the event was designed to facilitate best practice sharing, offer networking opportunities, and ensure Inform Health systems continue to support sexual health and HIV services to overcome wide ranging and continuously evolving challenges.

It was also an opportunity to share details of new system capabilities, alongside some very exciting plans for the future.

Commercial Director, Sue Bunn, kicked off proceedings with a welcome address, providing guests with an overview of the day’s activities.

During her presentation, Sue also shared exciting details of a ‘first of type’ project with Hampshire and IOW NHS Trust. Funded by NHS England, the project will see Inform integrate with the Electronic Prescribing Service, which will, in time, allow all customers to integrate with community pharmacies, as part of our standard product.

Sue also announced that, as of May this year, Inform Health is the market leader in sexual health in the UK!

The morning’s presentations then got underway, with a product update from Product Specialists, Jessica Everington and Jordana Collins. Discussing the latest updates and improvements, Jessica and Jordana shared details of the introduction of Multi-Factor Authentication and configurable data groups. They also ran through changes relating to the Patient Record, System Administration, Results Management, and Clinic and Appointment Management features.

Dr. Jack Shaw, Consultant Physician in Genitourinary & HIV Medicine, at Devon Sexual Health was next to take to the stage.

Speaking candidly about his experience implementing a brand-new electronic patient record system and embracing Inform Health’s PHR, Jack provided valuable insights into how Devon Sexual Health successfully utilised Inform Health systems to support service redesign.

Next up, Inform Health’s Product Director, Andrew Denman, provided delegates with an overview of new system capabilities and how they will support enhanced delivery of sexual health and HIV services.

This presentation proved particularly popular with our customers, thanks to some interesting props and emojis (IYKYK!) and OSCAR-worthy role play performances by Sales Manager, Louise Day, and Customer Success Manager, Vickie Shellam.

Some of the new capabilities announced during Andrew’s presentation include:

• Innovative dashboards for sexual health, HIV and beyond.

• The digitisation of HSA4 form submissions via integration with the online Abortion Notification System.

• Appointment invitation, which provides healthcare staff with control over the type of appointment that can be booked along with additional parameters, such as when and where the appointment can take place.

• PHR messaging, which has been updated to separate PHR messaging into its own feature.

• Mobile device check-in, designed to improve patient experience and increase the efficiency of clinic arrival.

• Image share – designed to provide patients with the ability to securely share images with their sexual health service, which can support remote diagnosis.

With new system capabilities wrapped up, it was Dr. Emily Lord’s turn to take to the stage. A Consultant in Sexual Health for Oxford Sexual Health Services, Emily provided guests with a behind the scenes look at how her service has been publishing results to patients’ PHRs and the benefits this has delivered.

Our new Service Desk Manager, Alex Cirket, then delivered a presentation on Inform Health’s support facility and talked through his track record for transforming service offerings to make them efficient, reliable, and reflective of the needs of the customers using them. He also shared how his team plans to deliver market-leading support to match Inform Health’s market-leading products.

Closing the morning’s presentations, Development Director, Jeff Bassington, discussed the continuous improvement of our system’s underlying product architecture.

During the lunchbreak, customers and colleagues headed for the Waterside Room to refuel, network, and participate in a series of speed dating demos!

A handful of customers also took the time to step outside of their comfort zones and take part in filmed interviews. It was heartening to hear every person speak so positively about their experiences of partnering with Inform Health and we can’t wait to share these videos with you all soon. 

After lunch, it was time to head back to the lecture theatre and dive straight back into all things #FutureOfSexualHealth with another session from Andrew. During this presentation, Andrew provided details of our current and planned developments, including e-prescribing, self-managed partner notification, split screens, and PrEP initiation.

Andrew also talked about the importance of close engagement with users of the Inform Health systems and shared details of how customers can get involved with our Suggested Enhancements Board and/or Special Interest Groups.

The penultimate session of the day took place in The Lodge Rooms, where we hosted collaborative workshops and tasked each table with discussing a particular issue and reporting back their thoughts and findings to the wider group. Topics included Automation, Patient Self-Management, Artificial Intelligence and a Common Data Set for Sexual Health. It’s safe to say we were blown away with the ideas and insights that were presented at the end of the session.

The 2024 User Conference concluded with a summary and Q&A session, where customers were able to take the opportunity to ask questions of our expert panel. It was then time to pack up, wish our customers safe journeys home, and thank everyone who contributed to making the day such a huge success. 

Our post event survey has again confirmed that 100% of guests rated our User Conference excellent or very good. We’ve also received some fabulous feedback, with one customer saying the 2024 User Conference was “a really interesting and informative conference with a good mix of presentations and interaction alongside a good period over lunch to network and speak to other service providers. Together with a great venue, in a central geographical location, it made for an excellent conference again. Thank you, Inform Team."

If you missed any of the presentations, or would be interested in sharing details with colleagues who were unable to attend this year’s User Conference, we will have recordings available on our website soon.