Microsoft signs new software deal with NPfIT
Health minister John Hutton has announced a three-year software licensing deal with Microsoft, claiming savings for the NHS of up to £112m over the next three years. The Department of Health (DH) says that the NHS will save a whopping £330 million over the lifetime of the deal, thanks to tight negotiations led by the National […]
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Engage or risk failure, BMA IT chief tells NPfIT
Dr John Powell, chair of the British Medical Association’s IT committee, has issued a fresh call to the National Programme for IT to engage with healthcare professionals or risk another public sector IT failure. Speaking at the IBC Informa ‘eHealth: Transforming healthcare access and delivery’ conference in London yesterday, Dr Powell said: "We need to learn […]
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Mencap chief exec joins care record board
Jo Williams, chief executive of Mencap, the UK’s leading learning disability charity, has joined the National Programme for IT’s Care Record Development Board (CRDB) as its social care deputy chair. Williams (right) said she was very pleased to be appointed and to be working with CRDB chair, Harry Cayton, for whom she said she had the […]
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Large scale MiSys EPR goes live in Saudi
Saudi Arabia’s National Guard Health Affairs (NGHA), the healthcare facility for the Saudi Arabian military police, has gone live with an electronic patient record system from IT solutions firm Misys. Misys CPR will cover members of the National Guard and their dependents. The company claims that the system will be one of the biggest clinical […]
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Open source software could save NHS money
The Office of Government Commerce has made recommendations that public procurement of software should consider open source solutions, citing, amongst other case studies, the experience of a Dublin-based hospital that made significant savings in transferring all its software to open source. The report says that public sector bodies should “examine carefully the technical and business […]
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Surgeon tags patients with WiFi to improve safety
Birmingham Heartlands Hospital is claiming to have the world’s first pilot of wireless active tagging system for patients, with links to electronic records containing digital photographs and a new easily-updatable electronic operating list. The system was introduced as part of a pilot three weeks ago to save time on verifying pre-operative checks, and to improve patient safety. […]
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New NHS email system switched on
The new NHS email system, Contact, has belatedly gone live after the abortive launch two weeks ago – but early indications from some E-Health Insider readers suggest that some significant teething problems remain with the new Cable & Wireless provided ‘Contact’ system. One NHS IT manager wrote to E-Health Insider this week providing his anonymous […]
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GPS helps dementia patients stay independent
The London Borough of Ealing is piloting a scheme that tracks mild dementia patients using GPS and mobile phones, allowing carers to find them if they get lost. The system, which was developed in partnership with Dr Frank Miskelly, from nearby Charing Cross Hospital, involves dementia sufferers wearing a GPS-enabled mobile in a secure holster […]
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London Oncology Clinic selects IMPAC Medical Systems
The London Oncology Clinic, a private provider on oncology services, has selected IMPAC Medical Systems to provide it with chemotherapy electronic charting, practice management, and statistical analysis solutions for its newly refurbished Harley Street clinic. According to Dr Maurice Slevin, consultant oncologist and one of the founding partners of the London Oncology Clinic, said that […]
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Hospital clerk jailed for culling patient data
A hospital worker from Northern Ireland who collected information from the patient records of politicians, senior military and police personnel, prison officers, members policing boards and loyalists was jailed for six years earlier this month. Belfast Crown Court Judge Mr Justice Higgins told Ciaran James Cunningham that it was “difficult to think of a more […]
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