Why Are GP Practices More Computerised Than Hospitals?

Scalability and incentives are suggested as the two key factors that explain why British GPs are far more likely to use a computer in the consulting room than their hospital-based colleagues.

In a pair of papers published in the British Medical Journal, managing consultant, Tim Benson, reviews the development of computer systems in British healthcare.

In the paper on incentives he points out that GPs have worked with the government to provide incentives for computerisation whereas IT in hospitals is treated as a management overhead.

” The success of the government’s plans for ‘joined up,’ computer based health services depends on providing appropriate incentives to hospital doctors,” Mr Benson concludes.

In the paper on scalability he points out that the systems used in GP practices do not readily scale up for hospital use and that computer based patient records have a more diverse range of uses in hospitals than in general practice. Simple unidimensional classification schemes such as the original Read codes cannot cope.

Other scalability problems identified are:
• Privacy protection – a much greater problems in hospitals;
• The interoperability challenges generated by the need to link many different systems together in hospitals;
• The number of potential users in hospitals makes substantial demands on hardware and networks.