Electronic Social Care Record To Be Phased
The December 2004 target for implementing full electronic social care records (ESCR) is not achievable and the roll-out is now due to take place between 2008-2010, at the same time as the English NHS integrated care record service (ICRS), a conference heard this week. Roger Staton, head of the Social Care Information Policy Unit at […]
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Poor IT Placing Patients at Risk Junior Doctors Warn
Improved communications systems that reflect the radically changed working practices in hospitals are vital to guarantee patient safety, a new report by the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee concludes. The report, ‘Making IT work for Junior Doctors’, produced to identify problems and solutions to better inform and influence the development of the National Programme for IT […]
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NHS to Introduce Own Gateway Reviews
The Department of Health is to introduce its own Gateway Review process to examine major NHS IT and building projects, modelled on the Gateway Review mechanism developed by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). E-Health Insider understands that the new arrangement, expected to be announced at Public Sector Expo this week, is a compromise, under […]
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Torex Buys Obs & Gynae Systems Specialist
Torex continued its march along the acquisition trail with the purchase of Protos Limited, the UK’s dominant provider of obstetric and gynaecology IT systems. The sale has been sealed for £1.45m in Torex ordinary shares and up to £0.4m cash, depending on the level of cash in the business. Both shares and cash are payable […]
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Basque GPs Suspended over Centralised Data Protest
Two GPs from the Basque Country in northern Spain have been suspended without pay, apparently for refusing to use a centralised database of patient records, writes SA Mathieson. The Basque health service, Osakidetza, last year implemented a central database called Osabide. According to Dr Juan Gérvas, a Madrid doctor and visiting professor at Baltimore’s Johns […]
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Mandatory Shared Financial Services Dropped
Plans to save up to £500m a year in NHS administration costs through the introduction of a next generation standardised NHS-wide finance system are in serious doubt following the Government’s decision not to mandate the adoption of shared financial services. The decision to drop implementation of two central pillars of the shared services initiative coincided […]
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Survey Makes “Compelling Case” for Electronic Records
Findings from an international survey highlighting problems with quality of care and wasted resources make a “compelling case” for electronic medical records and computerised prescribing systems, according to Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund. The survey, conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive, investigated the experience of […]
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Motion Media Selected for Belgium ‘Telehealth’
Videophones designed by UK visual technology specialists Motion Media Technology are to be used to deliver ‘telehealth’ services in Belgium under a new distribution and licensing agreement signed with Belgian telehealth specialists Proxihealth Technics. Proxihealth Technics has selected Motion Media’s complete range of video communication products to complement its existing portfolio of telemedicine solutions and […]
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Online Recruitment Plan for NHS in England
Details of the long-delayed project to put NHS jobs in England online have emerged from the Department of Health (DH). A pilot electronic recruitment service is due in summer 2003 and a full-roll out is expected in late 2003 or early 2004. Sites for NHS jobs in Wales and Scotland are already up and running […]
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Philosophical Response to Blackberd’s Grounding
A philosophical response greeted the news that the Black Country and Birmingham Electronic Records Development project – Blackberd to its friends – had been cancelled. The work done on the project, which was run by the Birmingham and Black Country Strategic Health Authority, will be used by the National Programme for IT in the NHS. […]
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