Questions in the House About DG Role
Mark Todd, Labour MP and a former IT director, has told E-Health Insider that he believes the current management structure for the National Programme for IT in the NHS "appears rather cloudy" and "is not the optimum arrangement". He says greater clarity over lines of accountability and leadership may be needed. The former head of […]
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Poole Wins HSJ Technology Award
Poole Hospital NHS Trust has won a Health Service Journal management award in the category for improving care with e-technology. The prize, sponsored by BT, was awarded for the trust’s development of an XML-based electronic patient record system. The trust, together with its technology partner Graphnet, has implemented an EPR system that now has more […]
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Siemens Tops European Health IT League
The health services division of Siemens Medical Solutions has been named the leader in the European Hospital Information Systems (HIS) market by health markets analyst Frost &Sullivan. Siemens purchase of Shared Medical Systems (SMS) has catapulted it into the number one slot in the European HIS sector, where it is now estimated to have an […]
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Blair Pledges NHS Broadband Access
Tony Blair has pledged £6bn of public money to deliver high-speed internet access to every school and doctor’s surgery by 2006, as part of a ’21st century revolution’ in the delivery of public services. Speaking at a government conference to discuss its delivery of e-commerce and e-government initiatives, the Prime Minister said £1bn of investment […]
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Electronic Booking Shifts Up a Gear
A further 45 electronic booking programmes are to start as the NHS gears up to meet its target of making all hospital appointment booking electronic by March 2005, health minister John Hutton announced today. Speaking at a conference held to celebrate the achievements of the five ‘Enterprise Communities’ already experimenting with electronic booking, Mr Hutton […]
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High Demand for Tablets Predicted in Health
Last week saw the international launch of Microsoft’s Tablet PC software and a series of tablet and slate-style devices by leading hardware manufacturers. Microsoft has high hopes for the Tablet PC, arguing that it will transform the way we work, collaborate and use computers. Microsoft’s public sector industry manager Jenny Duff told E-Health Insider that […]
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Early Warning System for Epidemics Launched
British health IT firm ComMedica has added a new module to its PIRILIS clinical information system that uses advanced algorithms to analyse data in order to predict the threat of epidemics such as influenza, or even epidemics caused by bioterrorism. ComMedica says the software addition will allow hospitals to more easily and quickly locate domestic […]
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‘Radical Steps’ Urged to Boost Health Informatics
The British Computer Society (BCS) has warned that unless urgent action is taken 40 years accumulated experience of health informatics may be swept away either by the promise of the "new" or by attrition and inertia caused by the current IT planning blight, placing the NHS IT strategy at risk. In a briefing paper, called […]
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Why Are GP Practices More Computerised Than Hospitals?
Scalability and incentives are suggested as the two key factors that explain why British GPs are far more likely to use a computer in the consulting room than their hospital-based colleagues. In a pair of papers published in the British Medical Journal, managing consultant, Tim Benson, reviews the development of computer systems in British healthcare. […]
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Revamp of Chief Executives Information Forum Announced
The NHS Chief Executives Information Forum (CEIF), which has represented chief executives views, advice and input to the NHS information and IT agenda for the last four years, is to be re-constituted with a new membership. While the existing CEIF is acknowledged to have had an important role in developing the national NHS IT strategy, […]
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