Healthcare Interoperability Forum in ‘Abeyance’
The Health Care Interoperability Forum (HCIF), an industry group of leading system suppliers focused on developing common standards, has gone into ‘abeyance’ and has no further plans to meet. The decision to cease further work was taken at meeting of the group two weeks ago after it became apparent that much of the work planned […]
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US SNOMED Licence Raises Questions Over NHS Deal
A $32.4m contract signed by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the US National Library of Medicine will make English and Spanish versions of SNOMED clinical terms – developed in collaboration with the NHS – available free-of-charge in the US from 2004. It is unclear, however, whether the NHS, as major investors in and […]
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Orkney Chooses PARIS to Integrate Care
The Orkney Islands Council Community Social Services Department and NHS Orkney have announced that they will work in partnership to introduce a shared information management system to support integrated care on PARIS, a system provided by social and community health system specialist in4tek. Orkney is introducing the system in line with the Scottish Executive’s commitment […]
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Major Grants to Develop ISABEL Decision Support Tool
Funding totalling £127,000 over three years has been awarded by the Department of Health to develop the ISABEL paediatric diagnosis tool for use with adults. The grant will be matched by an equal contribution from the Helen Hamlyn Trust. The award-winning, web-based decision support tool has been evaluated for paediatric use and passed an important […]
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PDAs or Tablet PCs? – The debate continues…
Last week Dr Andrew Harrison wrote about his experience of using a Tablet PC on the wards – The Tablet PC on Test . In response Steve Garrington, CEO of Torex Health, argued the case in favour of PDAs as the best mobile devices for clinicians – Open Source – Tablet PCs wrong for Doctors […]
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Granger Tells NHS Boards to Take on IT
A sign of the times was provided last week when it was standing room only at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference in Glasgow to hear NHS IT Director Richard Granger give details of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS. Speaking at his third major conference in as many weeks Mr Granger said […]
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ETP Pilots Ended for 5,000 Patients
The two remaining operational pilots for electronic transfer of prescriptions ETP are to be ended by the Department of Health (DoH), without a clear plan of how ETP will be taken forward. More than 5,000 patients who had been benefiting from the service will now have to switch back to physically collecting their prescriptions. ETP […]
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Open Source: Tablet PCs Wrong for Doctors – Steve Garrington, CEO Torex Health
Last week hospital doctor, Andrew Harrison, shared his experience of testing a Tablet PC on the wards. Steve Garrington, chief executive of Torex Health, uses our Open Source column to respond and argues the case for PDAs rather than Tablet PCs for clinicians. I found Andrew Harrison’s piece on his testing of a Tablet PC […]
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Medical Technology Aids Search for Queen Nefertiti
Medical imaging experts from Xograph Imaging Systems helped the Discovery Channel and a team of Egyptologists to take digital x-ray images of a mummy believed to be the legendary Egyptian beauty, Queen Nefertiti, stepmother of Tutankhamun. The latest portable x-ray devices and healthcare IT workstations were used inside a hidden chamber in Egypt’s Valley of […]
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Thames Valley ICRS Collaborative PFI Procurement Suspended
The Thames Valley Integrated Care Records Services (ICRS) collaborative procurement has become the latest high-profile NHS electronic records project to be put on hold, following a local decision to halt the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) procurement. At a meeting on 20 June the Programme Board in charge of the Thames Valley project decided to hold […]
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