iSOFT Acquires Northgate Healthcare Business
Fast growing UK Health IT firm iSOFT has announced that it has agreed to buy rival Northgate Healthcare Business from Northgate for £33 million in cash. The Northgate Healthcare Business is a leading UK vendor of electronic patient record information systems to the acute sector of the NHS. According to iSOFT the acquisition will make […]
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Fife Acute Hospitals Introduce New Network
Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has begun introducing a new Citrix-based IT network across its four main sites. The network, provided by Channel One, a business division of VisionWare Plc, is being administered by Fujitsu Siemens Computers, the project’s prime contractor, and an authorised supplier through the GCAT procurement scheme. Health professionals at Fife will […]
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DH Preparing £5 Billion IT Strategy
This week E-Health Insider provides an advance preview of the yet to be released, yet to be approved, draft implementation strategy, "Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS". Two months ago Sir John Pattison announced at Harrogate that a new national strategy for NHS IT, based on common standards, new investment and a new […]
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Leapfrog Group Extends Reach
The Leapfrog Group, an alliance of US healthcare organisations dedicated to reducing avoidable medical mistakes through introducing technology and best practice standards, has announced that 12 new regions of the US are to adopt the group’s patient safety standards. According to research by the US Institute of Health tens of thousands of Americans die and […]
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PCTs Told to Freeze IT Procurement Plans
Primary Care Trusts have been told to put their plans for integrated primary and community electronic patient records on hold while new national plans for IM&T strategy are drawn up. A new wave of Primary Care Trusts and strategic health authorities was created on 1 April, when health authorities were abolished replaced by 302 Primary […]
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NHSIA to Develop Infrastructure for Web Services
The NHS Information Authority has announced the launch of a new Health Records Infrastructure programme intended to make it possible to share patients’ healthcare details nationally by creating virtual patient records. The Health Records Infrastructure programme is intended to provide new services based on web technology. The new programme was first unveiled by new NHS […]
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Switching on Lightbulb
Early birds who rose in time for an HC 2002 breakfast meeting were rewarded with an account of the preparatory work underway on IT for cancer services in Birmingham with Lightbulb, the IT vendors’ group working to produce joined-up healthcare using web-based services. Colin Innes, director of IM&T for Birmingham health authority, told E-Health Insider, […]
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Review Underway to Get EPR ‘Back on Track’
Jon Hoeksma A major review of Electronic Patient Records (EPR) is underway by the Department of Health to get the programme back on track and the Information Policy Unit (IPU) has at last acknowledged the early EPR targets will not be met. E-Health Insider has learned that a review of the EPR programme is underway […]
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EPR at the Heart of NHS Redesign
Electronic patient records (EPRs) are good news for NHS organisations and patients, but recent academic research by the NHS Confederation’s Matthew Batchelor found that many organisations are facing significant barriers to their implementation. In an exclusive article for E-Health Insider, Batchelor summarises his key findings. The research, undertaken in autumn 2001, focused mainly on acute […]
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Government Urged to be Patient on Patient Records
The Government should accept that the 2005 target for electronic patient records will be missed and not be panicked into a national big bang approach that could have disastrous consequences for the health service, leading IT suppliers have warned. Having already accepted that the 2002 target for 35% of NHS trusts to have level three […]
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