UK practices best for IT to track medical errors
GPs in the UK are well ahead of colleagues around the world in having information systems which track medical errors, according to a survey of primary care doctors in seven countries. The survey of primary care doctors’ office systems in seven countries, the 2006 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians, reveals […]
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Royal Free launches GUM text appointment booking
A new text messaging service allowing patients to make appointments for treatment at a time convenient for them is to be launched at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London in the new year. The hospital’s Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) and Sexual Health clinics will use the system to provide a 24-hour appointment service connected to the hospital’s existing […]
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Informatics studentship available at Kingston
Kingston University is currently offering PhD studentships in a number of research projects in health computing and informatics subjects available immediately within the Faculty of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics. Formal applications must be sent to the Research and Enterprise Officer. Several of these projects may offer enhanced studentships of £15,500 to particularly strong candidates. […]
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‘Engage, understand and manage’ says NAO report
More engagement, understanding and better management is needed, if the public sector is to successfully deliver new IT services, according to a new report by the National Audit Office. The NAO’s ‘Delivering successful IT- enabled business change’ report identifies 24 successful public and private sector projects, including health service’s own NHS UK Transplant, which they […]
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Handwritten paperwork “causes delays”
GPs spend too long filling in paperwork by hand, decreasing the amount of time they spend with patients, a survey by software developers Codegate and Zebra Technologies has found. Fifty practice managers were contacted at events across the UK and half of them said handwritten forms caused delays in test diagnosis. Two fifths also said […]
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Nuffield aims for ‘paperless’ hospital finance
Nuffield hospitals, the UK independent hospitals group, has signed a contract with document management specialists Version One to implement its electronic form design, automated document delivery and electronic payment technologies across its 40 hospitals. The Version One software will replace Nuffield’s current manual processes, which involves signing and posting cheques with hard-copy remittance advices, and […]
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BMA issues new guidance on NHS CRS
The BMA Chairman has written to all BMA members to provide them with guidance on the NHS Care Records Service and outlining what it means for doctors and their patients. Although Connecting for Health is due to begin an expensive public information campaign, the BMA says it believes that patients should be made aware now […]
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INPS surgeries to use iPlato text messaging
Primary care software supplier INPS has announced that surgeries across England that use its software will also have the opportunity to use iPlato’s patient alert text messaging system, thanks to a strategic alliance between the two companies. The Vision SMS system, which incorporates iPlato’s patient care text messaging system into INPS’s general practice software, is to be used by a number […]
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QMS to ditch IDX for Cerner in 2007
Queen Mary Sidcup (QMS), the only London trust to have received a new hospital IT system under the NHS computerisation scheme, will now have to replace it less than a year after the system became fully operational. QMS first switched on IDX’s Carecast system after a fraught implementation in November 2005, but it has taken until […]
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NHS Supply Chain uses voice to monitor stock
NHS Supply Chain, the privatised NHS logistics service now run by DHL, has signed a deal with voice recognition specialists VoiteQ for a voice picking system so that staff can use their voices to confirm stock movements through wearable computers. NHS Supply Chain has installed the Vocollect Voice system in its Alfreton distribution centre. Staff now […]
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