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. […]
News
Australia Funds Research into Open Source EHR
The Australian Government has taken another step towards its plan to introduce a ‘lifetime’ electronic health record system following the award of a research and development contract to use open-source technology to make patient health records available on the internet. The R&D contract was awarded to the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC), and partners, Ocean […]
News
Health IT Leaders Welcome Wanless
From being strictly a minority interest healthcare Information and Communication technology (ICT) has suddenly moved to centre stage in British politics. According to leading Health IT figures the challenge is to rapidly deliver systems that provide real benefits to patients. Yesterday’s Budget saw the Government stake its future on delivering dramatic improvements in the NHS, […]
News
New Approach on Electronic Records Needed
Despite the investment of tens of billions of Euros in healthcare IT the industry worldwide has failed to deliver on the vision of an integrated computer-based electronic medical record. Instead the industry must now focus on focused web-based electronic health records that deliver immediate benefits to patients and clinicians. Opening Mobile-Health Europe in Maastricht this […]
News
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 […]
News
Danish Province Blazes Trail on EPR
Most healthcare systems in the industrialised world are struggling to develop or implement different models of electronic patient records, with the UK together with Australia, Canada, New Zeeland and the Netherlands often cited as being world leaders. But one of the most advanced and widespread EPR programmes in use is in the Danish province of […]
News
Microsoft Launches NHS Integration Vision
Microsoft has launched a blueprint which it says will enable the NHS to integrate health legacy IT systems cost-effectively and deliver joined-up healthcare. The US software-giant describes its vision as EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), an approach grounded in Microsoft’s .NET suite of products to deliver joined-up, distributed web services. The emerging .NET strategy is based […]
News
UK Government Warms to Open Source Software
The Cabinet Office has published a consultation paper on use of Open Source Software (OSS) within the UK Government sector –- including the NHS — that concludes the development of OSS represents a fundamental change in the software market. OSS, software whose source code is openly published, is usually available at no charge, and is […]
News
Gates Says NHS Must Deliver in Digital Age
It’s not every day that you get to see the richest man in the world, and the gawp factor must have accounted for a good number of the 150-odd NHS chief executives and directors that attended last week’s Microsoft-sponsored Department of Health IT conference. But the man from Redmond offered them little in way of […]
News