NHS Scotland aims for electronic records from 2010
Delivering for Health, the board responsible for IT in NHS Scotland, says it will act on the key recommendations of a forthcoming Deloitte report on delivering e-health in Scotland and say they will be in a position to implement integrated electronic patient records by as early as 2010. The Deloitte report was commissioned by the […]
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Apollo patient data mining software may breach DPA
A primary care IM&T adviser has recommended that GP practices do not use Department of Health supplied software to extract data for a patient survey because of concerns over patient confidentiality. Dr Simon Barton, GP IM&T adviser for Cornwall, wrote to all practices after the DH issued instructions to practices on how to use software […]
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Online care pathways for cancer developed
The NHS Cancer Services Collaborative ‘Improvement Partnership’ (CSCIP) has developed a national electronic information pathway designed to point cancer patients and health professionals towards relevant and useful information, whatever the stage of the illness. The site, which was developed using feedback from patients, GPs and cancer care specialists, is continually updated and is based on […]
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Guidance on exception reporting published
The publication of exception reporting data for the Quality and Outcomes Framework will reveal total numbers of patients excepted for each indicator but not the reasons behind the decisions. In new guidance on exception reporting NHS Employers and the British Medical Association say the software used to calculate practices’ performance in the QoF, such as […]
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GP practices to pilot updating details on nhs.uk
A pilot is underway to enable GP practices to update and maintain their own entries on www.nhs.uk – the official website for accessing information about NHS services. Patients often use information from the www.nhs.uk website to decide which surgery to enrol with, so it is essential that the practice information held on the site is […]
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NHS data ‘not accurate enough’ to assess doctors
NHS hospital episode data is not accurate enough to monitor individual doctors’ performance, according to a pilot study conducted by the Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP) iLab. The pilot allowed doctors to access the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) in England and the Patient Episode Database Wales (PEDW). Both databases include information such as when a […]
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NHS Scotland signs Microsoft licensing deal
NHS Scotland has signed a national deal with Microsoft to supply office software and desktop operating systems at a discounted rate, saving an estimated £8m. Terms of the three-year deal were not disclosed, and the agreement is the first of its kind that NHS Scotland and Microsoft have signed together. Microsoft already has an enterprise-wide […]
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LSPs fail ‘acid test’ on PAS deployments
Delivery of the patient administration systems due to form the foundation for future electronic patient records in NHS hospitals has stalled with only a fifth of the systems promised in June actually installed. In June NHS Connecting for Health said that 22 acute NHS trusts would get new PAS systems by the end of October. […]
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Warner rejects call for CfH architecture review
Health minister Lord Warner has rejected calls from leading computer academics for an independent review of the technical architecture of the NHS national programme for IT. Speaking at a conference in London yesterday he said: "…I do not support at the call by 23 academics to the House of Commons Health Select Committee to commission […]
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HL7 conference calls for wider interoperability
Standards drive innovation, catalyse industry growth and create opportunities for many companies in the industry, the HL7 UK conference heard this week. Norbert Mikula, director of electronic health record technology for Intel’s digital health argued that “once industries are on one format, growth can happen.” He cited case the of Centrino mobile technology where Intel […]
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