NHS Direct demand breaks seasonal records
Over one million people contacted NHS Direct in England over the 11 day Christmas and New Year holidays, breaking all previous records. But in Scotland, demand for NHS24 showed a year-on-year decline. Figures for phone calls and online traffic to NHS Direct Online from 21 December 2007 to 1 January 2008 – show an increase […]
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MPs call for data loss to be a crime
Reckless or repeated breaches of data security should become a criminal offence, the House of Commons Justice Select Committee has urged in its report into the protection of private data. The call follows the loss of 25m people’s personal details by HM Revenue and Customs last November, described by the committee as ‘truly shocking’. The […]
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Cameron says NHS IT must be local
Conservative party leader David Cameron has attacked the NHS IT programme and called for local ownership and innovation. In a keynote speech at Trafford General Hospital to mark the 60th anniversary of the NHS, the opposition leader called for local NHS organisations to be allowed to innovate. He singled out the IT team at Trafford […]
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CSW awarded contract for Welsh Individual Health Record
Informing Healthcare, the NHS Wales IT agency, has awarded a three year contract to CSW Group Ltd to commence implementation of the Individual Health Record (IHR) in out-of-hours care in North West and South West Wales. The service is scheduled to become available for the 390,000 patients by spring 2008. The areas covered by the […]
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Bosch buys Health Hero Network
German industrial giant, the Bosch Group, has acquired US telehealth specialist and innovator Health Hero Network Inc., which focuses on remote health monitoring. Stuttgart, Germany-based Bosch did not disclose terms of the deal with Health Hero Network, which is based in Palo Alto, California. Terms of the agreement were not be disclosed. Health Hero Network […]
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Four-fifths of doctors say electronic record insecure
Four-fifths of doctors are concerned that current plans for patients’ health records to be available from a central database – the summary care record – will make them insecure, according to a survey for the Times. Asked what level of confidence they had that central health records will be secure, 80% of GP respondents said […]
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Brown says information key to promoting self care
Self care supported by information and advice from professionals is a major theme in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s New Year message on the NHS. He also pledged to bring in a new constitution for the service – celebrating its 60th anniversary this year – setting out the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to […]
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Up to 200,000 request SCR opt-out forms
An estimated 200,000 people have requested or downloaded opt-out documents for the NHS Summary Care Record (SCR), according to a campaign group. The Big Opt Out, which is campaigning against plans for a national database of patient information, told the Daily Mail there had been 200,000 website downloads or requests for letters which people can send to their […]
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Computer interfaces without keyboards
A group of European scientists have used acoustic sensors to turn wooden tabletops and even three-dimensional objects into a new type of computer interface which may prove useful in healthcare. The researchers – in Germany, France, Italy, England, Wales and Switzerland – who were brought together by the project, part-funded by the European Commission, admit […]
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Keyboard-free access could benefit health
A group of European scientists have used acoustic sensors to turn wooden tabletops and even three-dimensional objects into a new type of computer interface which may prove useful in healthcare. The researchers– in Germany, France, Italy, England, Wales and Switzerland – who were brought together by the project, part-funded by the European Commission, admit that […]
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