Hammersmith & Fulham Integrate Care Electronically
Nationally, health and social services suffer from a lack of integrated IT systems. However, a few local authorities have started to innovate in linking the two, writes SA Matthieson. One is the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has developed a Joint Electronic Transfer (Jet) extranet project, designed to allow doctors to view social services […]
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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 Direct “Will More than Double” by 2006
NHS Direct is set to more than double in size, handling 16 million calls by 2006. The service is also due to launch a personal health organiser on its Internet service, NHS Direct Online, to enable members of the public to store key health information. Announcing the plans, health minister, John Hutton, said, “NHS Direct […]
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Air Passenger’s Remote ECG Makes History
The makers of Tempus 2000 remote monitoring equipment and bmi claimed a place in telemedicine and aviation history when a passenger became the first traveller on a commercial airline to have an electrocardiogram (ECG) recorded in flight and transmitted via satellite to ground-based US physicians. The passenger, Stephen Clarke of Congleton, Cheshire, became ill on […]
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HC 2003 – Pick of the Product and Service News
Healthcare Computing is a traditional launch pad for healthcare IT products and services and the industry did not disappoint this year. We list below a selection of the new launches, versions and deals announced at Harrogate last week. Click here for a full list of exhibitors. Telemedicine Solutions from Tandberg Tandberg demonstrated its videoconferencing solution, […]
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Poor IT Systems Contributing to NHS Waiting List Errors
Poor IT systems have been identified by the Audit Commission as a contributory factor leading to errors in waiting list statistics. The finding shows the impact that the NHS’s legacy of IT underinvestment is having on waiting lists – the government’s highest profile target for service improvement. Reports of the commission’s widely publicised bulletin on […]
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Fife’s EPR Implemented Early
Siemens Healthcare Services has announced that Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has successfully gone live with the first stage of an electronic patient record (EPR) system supplied by Capula Elan across three hospital sites six weeks early. Half a million patient records from the legacy Homer patient administration system (PAS) at Victoria Hospital & Forth Park […]
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Scottish Ambulance Plans to Network Vehicles
Scottish Ambulance plans to put networked computers in all of its emergency vehicles to provide crews with better information en route to emergency incidents in an investment project worth up to £6m. The multimillion project, which would cover the whole of Scotland, is designed to cut response times, improve communications with hospital casualty departments and […]
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Resource File: Planning for the New Emergencies
The National Audit Office’s recent report on emergency planning found that, while there had been an improvement in the planning for major incidents, there was still more to do especially for the newer post-September 11 threats. The links below offer information resources on IT designed to aid planning for the new kind of emergencies we […]
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PiRiLiS Offers A Life Saving Time Saver
A modern Web-based link has replaced motorbike couriers weaving through busy London traffic to bring prompt expert advice on head injury from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neuroscience in Holborn to the accident and emergency unit at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. ComMedica, the spin-off company from Imperial College, London, has set up an instant […]
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