Centre for robotic surgery opened in London
Robotic assistant in action. A centre for robotic surgery has been created at Imperial College London with the aid of the Helen Hamlyn Trust. The Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery will champion the integration of robotics into medicine and patient care, with the aim of developing advanced robotic technologies. It will be based at Imperial College […]
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iB Solutions wins contract extension
iB Solutions, an Irish subsidiary of IBA Health, has won a £22m contract extension with NHS Shared Business Services to host its Oracle financial and purchasing applications for a further five years. The Irish company has provided services to NHS SBS since 2002, and the current contract has been extended until 2014. The company is providing […]
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Humana launches commissioning simulator tool
Gloucestershire PCT pilots the Commissioning Simulator A new computer-based simulation programme has been launched by Humana Europe, which replicates the three-year business cycle of a PCT and could influence future commissioning. The commissioning tool, which is being offered to all strategic health authorities (SHAs) by the Department of Health, is said to provide a risk-free […]
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e-Health without frontier conference details issued
Details of the European Union-backed ‘e-Health without frontiers’ conference to be held in Slovenia, 6-7 May, have been belatedly been released. The event, which will be held in Portoz, Slovenia, will focus on the theme of e-Health without frontiers. The e-health conference coincides with Slovenia holding the presidency of the EU Council The conference is […]
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Finland awards national patient archive contract
The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) has selected EMC to build a new centralised national patient record archive to securely store over 5m health records in what will become Finland’s largest database. The project aims to deliver an electronic prescription service later this year, followed by the completion of a comprehensive patient record and […]
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Swindells to open Healthcare Computing 2008
The Department of Health’s acting chief information officer, Matthew Swindells, has been confirmed as the opening speaker at next month’s Healthcare Computing conference. Swindells will tell the conference that IT professionals should “step forward and play their part” to help bring about changes in the NHS. He commented: “Information saves lives, so information professionals need […]
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QoF cash for quitters
GPs could be paid depending on the number of their patients who stop smoking as part of possible changes to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QoF), according to the head of primary care commissioning for the Department of Health. Mark Britnell, DH director general of commissioning and system management, outlined a range of possible changes […]
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Misys Healthcare to merge with Allscripts
Misys, the UK-based IT software group, is to merge its healthcare division with smaller US rival, Allscripts to create a larger specialist provider of clinical software and services for the US primary – or ambulatory – healthcare market. In a deal worth almost £500m, Misys will combine Misys Healthcare with Allscripts to create Allscripts-Misys Healthcare […]
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CfH says SCR audit trails ‘clunky’
Connecting for Health has acknowledged the audit trail facility in the first Summary Care Record pilots ‘has been clunky’, after minutes from the board of Bolton PCT expressed concerns over the functionality. Problems are reported with the time required to review audit trail alerts – created by the SCR system. In official minutes, a member of Bolton PCT’s SCR board branded […]
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NHS Direct reports lower calls, higher web traffic
NHS Direct has reported a fall in telephone calls received, attributed to an increased usage of its website for health information and advice. Though full figures are yet to be disclosed, the service has issued initial figures showing that on a month-by-month basis, caller numbers are down approximately 7% on 2006, with around 400,000 calls […]
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