NPfIT’s new name already taken

The announcement that the NHS National Programme for IT is to become Connecting for Health appears to have immediately run into teething problems with its chosen name already owned by a US health IT research foundation.

A simple Google search reveals that Connecting for Health is a registered service mark of the Markle Foundation www.connectingforhealth.org, a leading American public-private organisation that carried out research and produces strategy documents on promoting the use of clinical information technology.

A National Programme spokesperson told E-Health Insider: “We have been alerted about this and are looking into it further.” NPfIT is due to become a DH agency from the beginning of April.

EHI understands that the new name originated within the National Programme, rather than being developed by its recently appointed corporate marketing agency Porter Novelli, who are assisting the programme with its marketing and branding in preparation for a major marketing campaign to the public.

Sources at the national programme indicate that the news Connecting for Health is already a registered service mark of an existing health IT organisation has caused a degree of consternation. Full details of the new branding and positioning of the renamed NPfIT have yet to be worked out.