InterSystems Demonstrates Scalability of Primary Care Systems
Database systems supplier InterSystems, has announced that it has carried out successful scalability tests of its CACHÉ database product in collaboration with primary care clinical systems supplier EMIS to demonstrate how primary care electronic records can be scaled to a national-scale system with a small hardware footprint. The scalability tests were based on demonstrating how […]
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Major Study of Healthcare IT Benefits Announced
A leading US policy think tank is to conduct a study to determine how much patient care could improve and how much money could be saved if healthcare professionals increased their use of information technology. The RAND Health study will focus on electronic records systems, clinical information sharing and clinical decision support tools. Richard Hillestad, […]
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US SNOMED Licence Raises Questions Over NHS Deal
A $32.4m contract signed by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the US National Library of Medicine will make English and Spanish versions of SNOMED clinical terms – developed in collaboration with the NHS – available free-of-charge in the US from 2004. It is unclear, however, whether the NHS, as major investors in and […]
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Kaiser Permanente Aims for E-Health within Three Years
Kaiser Permanente, the second biggest integrated health delivery organisation in the US, has announced that it will invest $1.8 billion in advanced ICT systems including electronic medical records, electronic appointment booking, electronic prescription refills and referral requests. The programme represents one of the largest and most ambitious implementations of electronic medical records yet seen, in […]
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US Physicians Sceptical IT Can Cut Medical Errors
A new US study has highlighted a major gap between the strategies recommended by medical error experts to reduce errors, and the views of physicians and members of the public. Relatively few US physicians identified increased use of IT as a very effective part of strategies to reduce medical errors in hospitals. Keynote studies, such […]
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McKesson Agrees Purchase of ALI Technologies
McKesson Corporation has agreed to buy ALI Technologies, a Vancouver-based enterprise medical imaging solutions company in a deal worth around $340m (£243m). ALI products, which include PACS, are designed to streamline access to diagnostic information, automate clinical workflow and eliminate the need for film. The companies say the deal is expected to close within 90 […]
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IT Investment Gives Californian HMO an Edge Over the NHS
A comparison of the NHS and non-profit Californian health maintenance organisation, Kaiser Permanante, has revealed that investment in information technology is one of the explanations for the HMO’s superior performance on several measures. Writing in the British Medical Journal, the researchers from the University of California and the Healthcare Redesign Group, conclude, “Healthcare costs per […]
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Health Information More Popular than Games or Chat
More young people go online to search for health information than to play games, chat or take part in other popular Internet activities associated with the age group. A new US report, "Generation Rx.com", by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 68% of the population aged 15-24 use online media to learn about diabetes, AIDS […]
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“Millstone of History” Holds Back UK E-Health
The UK health service is still struggling to adopt the information technology and business practices that will drag it out of the industrial era of hospital factories and into the information age model of virtual, patient-centric healthcare. But why is the health service apparently unable to get to grips with proven technologies that became commonplace […]
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Kaiser Hospitals Buys Bankrupt Webvan’s E-commerce Technology
During the dotcom boom, procurement managers in the health sector were told they risked being left behind if they failed to instantly harness the opportunities of e-commerce. But thanks to the continuing dotcom downturn, the more cautious "wait and see" approach adopted by many appears to have paid off, with some healthcare organisations now able […]
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