Vital signs system monitors patients electronically
A new hand-held computer system called VitalPAC, which allows staff to input patients’ vital signs electronically from the bedside, has been deployed at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust. VitalPAC is a software system designed by hospital improvement specialist The Learning Clinic in conjunction with Microsoft and the trust, which records, stores and analyses vital signs data, […]
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Telecare framework sales near £7m mark
Almost £7m of sales have gone through the telecare national framework agreement since its launch last June and an update available from this month has added nearly 1000 new equipment lines and additional savings. The national framework agreement, run by the NHS Purchasing and Supplies Agency (NHS PASA), aims to provide health and local authorities […]
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FOI victory on report that led to axing of NHSu
Nurse educator and health informatician, Rod Ward, has won the right under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to see a report on the NHSu, the health service’s short-lived, online university that was dissolved in 2005. The Department of Health (DH) has withdrawn an appeal against the release of the report which was due to […]
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Social workers get £13m for laptops
The government is to give local authorities a capital grant of £13million to invest in mobile IT for social workers. The grant, announced by children’s minister Parmjit Dhanda, is to be spent on mobile IT including laptops and personal digital assistants and is aimed at helping social workers adapt to new ways of working and […]
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Extra suppliers catalogue tender welcomed by industry
Reaction to last week’s publication of the tender for a catalogue of additional healthcare IT suppliers was broadly positive, generating questions about how soon the extra solutions and services would be available not whether the new approach was a good idea. Predictably, the supplier community welcomed the opportunity opened up by the tender. Nick Kalisperas […]
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Hewitt apologises for junior doctor recruitment crisis
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has apologised to junior doctor applicants after the problems experienced by the online system used to select doctors came under heavy scrutiny. The Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) was repeatedly delayed with the website falling over due to demand, causing data loss and glitches to filing applications, resulting in two […]
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Agfa launch ORBIS EPR to UK market
Agfa HealthCare has launched its proven ORBIS electronic patient record system in the UK for the first time. The software is already used by 800 hospitals internationally. The system is Agfa’s most comprehensive hospital-wide clinical information system which delivers a complete electronic patient record as well as modules for scheduling, activity management and communication software. […]
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79 Milton Keynes staff say Millennium “not fit for purpose”
Seventy-nine clinicians and admin staff at Milton Keynes General Hospital have written an open letter to the management stating that the new Cerner Millennium system installed by Fujitsu in February is "not fit purpose". In their open letter, the staff describe the software as "awkward and clunky" and state: "In our opinion the system should […]
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QMAS fails to take strain in end of year rush
The national IT system for the Quality and Outcomes Framework has been failing to work intermittently yesterday and today as GP practices attempt to submit their data at the end of the year. The Quality and Management Analysis System (QMAS), built for NHS Connecting for Health by BT, has been intermittently unavailable. One primary care […]
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PACS roll-out milestone hit in London and the South
All NHS hospital trusts across London and the South of England have now received systems to enable them to capture and store digital diagnostic images as part of the health service IT modernisation programme. NHS Connecting for Health, the agency responsible for NHS IT, yesterday confirmed to E-Health insider that 56 digital picture archiving and […]
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