NHS Greater Glasgow has finalised the installation of a high-speed network that links all 19 PCTs and around half of the GP surgeries with Glasgow City Council allowing health and social care data to be collated and examined in one place, as well as fast transfer of images and pictures. A powerful portal system has been developed which can be accessed by both healthcare professionals and council staff, and will be able to scrape relevant XML data from council and NHS electronic records. Although different record systems are in use across different PCTs and council departments, those which are not XML-compliant are having drivers written for them. Dave Brown, account manager for NHS Greater Glasgow, told E-Health Insider that an initiative from the Scottish Executive encouraging inter-agency networking prompted the installation of the network and portal: “Each health trust around Scotland will interact with the local council, with a direct connection and firewall." The network has already had tangible benefits. A city-wide shortage of radiologists has been addressed as any scans made can be transferred to a radiologist on call for analysis and immediate response. Wendy Hull, finance director of NHS Greater Glasgow, says that another benefit of the faster system has been instantaneous referrals: “There is no longer any need for lengthy written referral processes as GPs can now complete this for the patient via the new network, and immediately get it directly to a specific consultant or specialist. This saves both the patient time and NHS resources." Each healthcare organisation has been given a feed into the city-wide network. “Health centres have enough bandwidth to view images if they require, and other high-definition data. The bandwidth has been systematically apportioned," says Steve McKee, consultant for Omnetica, who installed the network. “The GPs interact on the same kind of infrastructure. We incorporate the GP’s system and put them on a secure server. We securely bring the GPs into the network, so the GPs can go in and look at internal resources." “We have tied everyone together; from a data and a network perspective." McKee is aiming to have all GPs connected to the system, as many are using different broadband and networking services and are still in contract. “They’ve been given the option to come onto the network. They’ll have a compelling reason; that we will be able to give hem something bigger."
