Ascelus Q
Ascelus A (aQ) is designed to facilitate the capture of information from patients/other user groups incorporating complex question structures, algorithms and AI to deliver actionable insights. aQ goes beyond a conventional survey tool - it is a comprehensive platform with a broad range of applications for health and social care.
Features
- Research participant mobile app and research staff web portal
- Simple or complex questionnaires and disease specific PROMS
- In-built symptom tracker that is configurable multiple research cohorts
- Dynamic data collection through advanced questionnaire scheduling
- Innovative branching logic to enable highly customised questionnaires
- In-platform questionnaire design and testing
- Import validated questionnaires for PROMS, PAM13 and others
- Assign specific calculations to participant responses and set alerts
- Review and track participant responses via interactive research management dashboard
- Configurable notifications and reminders to prompt research participants.
Benefits
- More convenient for patients/ research participants and research staff
- Improves the quality and cost-effectiveness of research/data collection
- Assess feedback and outcomes both individually and at scale
- Reduced costs for research budgets
- Bespoke data collection for broad health/social care applications
- Digitally inclusive platform with Mobile App and Web Compatibility
- User-friendly, intuitive interface co-designed with participants and researchers
- Meets all NHS interoperability standards
Pricing
£3,200 a licence a year
- Education pricing available
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 14
Service ID
4 1 4 5 8 6 5 2 5 2 2 5 7 2 9
Contact
ITECHO HEALTH LIMITED
Adrian Brown
Telephone: 07843261566
Email: adrian@itechohealth.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- No
- Cloud deployment model
- Public cloud
- Service constraints
-
Users require a supported web browser and minimum specification devices.
Software requires one of following: Google Chrome web browser on a PC desktop or laptop; Safari web browser on an Apple iMac, MacBook, iPad or iPhone or an Android tablet or smartphone. - System requirements
-
- Google Chrome web browser (Win7+, Android5.1+, MacOS 10.11+)
- Apple Safari web browser (MacOS 10.12+, iOS 11.4+)
- A reliable connection to the internet greater than 192kbps rate
- Laptop, tablet or a smart phone
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
-
Operational hours (service hours) 24 x 7 x 365
Business support hours (service support hours) 8-6 Mon-Fri (except bank holidays) - User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- Yes
- Online ticketing support accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 24 hours, 7 days a week
- Web chat support
- Web chat
- Web chat support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support accessibility standard
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Web chat accessibility testing
- We have test scenarios using an official WCAG2.1AA guidance and we are doing internal testing. no outside audit has been conducted yet.
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
-
Itecho Health provides training for first line and second line support teams and then takes the 3rd line support calls. We also assist nominated Primary Support Contacts once a range of common, typically local, causes have been ruled out.
If an issue cannot be resolved locally, or by the customer organisation's IT support using the resources available, Itecho Health provide a service desk that nominated Primary Support Contacts can access. - Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- We provide training to the staff team, online videos and user documentation. For patients/participants online videos, chat support and user documentation is available for the application.
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
-
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- On contract expiry the data can be downloaded in CSV format for up to 30 days following contract expiration.
- End-of-contract process
- Extraction of data , any support needed for transition and any queries in the transition period are included in the price. Any request over and above standard data extraction will be at an additional cost
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Internet Explorer 11
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari
- Application to install
- Yes
- Compatible operating systems
-
- Android
- IOS
- MacOS
- Windows
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- No material difference except that layout changes to suit the screen format
- Service interface
- Yes
- User support accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- Description of service interface
- All service and administration is accessed via the management console web page. This is accessed by the original administrator who can delegate access.
- Accessibility standards
- WCAG 2.1 A
- Accessibility testing
- Itecho Health has a vision of digital health accessible for all. A formal accessibility assessment has not been conducted on the most recent version of the management console. The console employs components that have accessibility support as outlined in web content requirements.
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
-
Most configuration aspects of the aQ Web Application can be accessed via the API.
Developers can enable their applications or integrations to access the API using credentials with the appropriate access levels to the target configuration. HTTPS REST calls with JSON payload are supported. - API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
-
- Open API (also known as Swagger)
- HTML
- API sandbox or test environment
- Yes
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- Itecho Health's approach is to ensure that aQ is customised to for individual services, research projects and customers whilst using a core platform to minimise the time and cost to make changes. We use a co-design approach with patients/participants and staff/researchers to ensure that our products meet user needs and expectations. Generic PROMs and disease specific PROMs and bespoke questionnaires can be be added either after being supplied to Itecho Health or constructed by the customer in the user application. For minor changes customers can quickly customise many aspects including branding, messaging provided to patients/participants, support contacts, patient/participant information, opening hours and their is a frequently asked questions area of the staff/researcher portal which can then be populated so that this information appears in the patient/participant user application.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
- AQ is a AWS based platform and has mechanism built-in to increase capacity based on increase in usage.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
-
Total number of participants actively using the application;
number of questionnaires completed for each survey;
total number of staff members using the application;
dashboard of service status and uptime of application and
any other bespoke reports needed. - Reporting types
-
- API access
- Real-time dashboards
- Regular reports
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Other security clearance
- Government security clearance
- Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
- United Kingdom
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Datacentre security standards
- Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Penetration testing approach
- Another external penetration testing organisation
- Protecting data at rest
- Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
- Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
- Equipment disposal approach
- Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- Users assigned Administrator or Reporter roles for Customer Organisation, have access to standard reports in CSV format aggregated for all of their assigned entities, via the web application interface.
- Data export formats
- CSV
- Data import formats
- CSV
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Data protection within supplier network
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
-
The service availability is based on the aggregate SLAs of the service components from the underlying cloud hosting provider. This is 99.95%.
No refund scheme is currently in place. - Approach to resilience
-
The system is provided as a resilient, high availability service.
Underlying infrastructure is provided by accredited cloud providers, with redundant and resilient internet connections and local utilities.
The system is designed for continuity with resilience to both site and component failures.
Redundant sets of components are deployed into geographically-separated sites. These redundant components are configured for cross-communication, so that if a component fails in a given zone, its functions will be fulfilled by surviving components in another site.
The design is scalable with additional component units able to be added for resilience and capacity. - Outage reporting
-
The following outage reporting methods are employed:
- Publicly Accessible Service Status Dashboard on the patient app, clinician app will show the outage
- API available for individual component status
- Email alerts to nominated Customer Contacts
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- New users need to be registered to our aQ system as a valid user, once the user is registered they need to use two factor authentication to sign in
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- How long system logs are stored for
- Between 1 month and 6 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- No
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Cyber essentials
- Yes
- Cyber essentials plus
- No
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
- Cyber Essentials
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- Yes
- Security governance standards
- CSA CCM version 3.0
- Information security policies and processes
-
A comprehensive set of policies covering implementation and management controls across the following aspects: Access and Authorisation Control; Network and Data Encryption; Network Ingress/Egress; Centralised Event; Logging and Alerting; Systems Hardening; Data Protection and Retention; Intrusion Protection/Detection; Malware and Virus Protection; Patch Management; Solution Design Assurance; Vulnerability Assessment; Incident Management and Solution and Systems Development
Systems design and implementation documentation is delivered to the standard required for effective realisation of security controls. Security Controls implemented in technical domain are unit and integration tested for impact and effectiveness. The IT Operations Manager is responsible for ongoing monitoring of systems and procedural aspects relating to security policy enforcement and or detection of exceptions and/or violations. An ISO compliant Documentation Control System is used. Internal Policy Approvals are the responsibility of Senior Management team including the CTO and CEO.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Configuration and change management approach
-
The Software and Systems development lifecycle is mature with clear boundaries between phases and activities and individual assignment and accounting for activity at each phase.
Quality Assurance Scope and test case specification and execution are tracked and reported in functional and regression testing.
Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Test automation is in place to ensure repeatable, consistent and robust deployment.
Role separation for QA sign-off, authority to deploy and deployment execution.
All software and systems development steps are tracked in issue management system which incorporates approval gates and sign-off of impact, risk and rollback steps. - Vulnerability management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Vulnerability management approach
-
Infrastructure and application assurance, employs a suite of standard security testing tools.
Regular external-facing testing is performed to ensure infrastructure attack surface-area complies with the design and deployment specifications.
Server configuration and software versions are audited against currently-known vulnerabilities.
Application server systems protection with an automated system vulnerability assessment and virtual patching providing automatic update of protection modules for newly discovered vulnerabilities even before operating system or vendor patches are available.
The application hosting environment is audited for any inadvertent misconfiguration.
Third-party-contracted testing is performed in concert with key stakeholders. - Protective monitoring type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Protective monitoring approach
-
Web Application Firewall with comprehensive OWASP Top 10 coverage
On host intrusion protection and detection system: Alerts are configured so that system administrators are informed when events occur which require immediate action or investigation. Major event alerts trigger delivery of email. Critical events trigger alert via AWS SNS with higher priority email and SMS to designated phones.
Daily Reports are delivered to System Administrators which cover: summary of all system and subsystems events; all firewall events; all integrity monitoring events and all log inspection events.
Identified incidents are correlated with system wide log/events. - Incident management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Incident management approach
-
Responsible support staff are alerted to intrusion detection, component failures and above threshold metrics.
A Service Desk is available for logging of incidents, with ticket confirmation reported via email.
Incident resolutions are logged and add to knowledge base for most effective future responses.
Centralised log collection and analysis allows rapid analysis of system errors or attack vectors and forensics.
Post Incident Review will be conducted with root cause analysis reported to CTO.
The CTO is responsible for reporting and rectifying security weaknesses and instigating control improvements based on lessons learned.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- Yes
- Connected networks
- Health and Social Care Network (HSCN)
Social Value
- Social Value
-
Social Value
WellbeingWellbeing
Our aQ platform has been designed in collaboration with two leading Universities to focus on collection of data on quality of life, in particular for patients undergoing chemotherapy and other cancer treatment and post surgical interventions.
Pricing
- Price
- £3,200 a licence a year
- Discount for educational organisations
- Yes
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- We can work with your team to organise a trial period or pilot to demonstrate the effectiveness and usability of the service. We can include patients/participants and staff/researchers in the trial. The trial is for an initial 30 days with extension following mutual agreement.