Boxing Day Busiest Ever Day for NHS Direct
NHS Direct, the UK national telephone health advice service, had its busiest ever day on Boxing Bay, as the holiday season took its toll. The top enquiries were for vomiting, fever, coughs and diarrhoea. According to figures reported by the Guardian, the 24-hour nurse-led advice service took more than 24,000 calls on Boxing Day – […]
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US Alliance to Promote Electronic Medical Records
Leading US doctor, hospital and consumer groups have formed the Patient Safety Institute (PSI), a major new collaborative initiative designed to harness and integrate secure IT systems to improve patient safety and healthcare quality, The aim is to develop a confidential computer network, based on open standards, to electronically link medical records so doctors can […]
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Atuline to Launch Europe’s First Virtual Hospital
Finish Novo Group will present its Atuline Virtual Hospital project at the Medica 2001 international medical device trade fair in Düsseldorf. The service is the first virtual hospital to be registered in the European Union. The Atuline Virtual Hospital offers online medical consultation and electronic prescriptions for both individuals’ health care providers. In addition, the […]
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NHS Plus Network Launched
A new NHS network called NHS Plus has been officially launched to market occupational health services to the private sector, generating income for the NHS to invest in health services. The NHS Plus network — backed by a new dedicated NHS Plus Website — is intended to provide the first national forum for people and […]
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Accurian Partners with Healthology
Visitors to Acurian’s clinical trials and related information site will soon be able to access more than 1000 health information programs from Healthology, under a new agreement between the two firms announced this week. Acurian specialises in accelerating clinical trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies by using patient and investigator recruitment solutions. The company’s proprietary […]
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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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Merckmedco.com, the Billion Dollar Online Pharmacy
Despite deepening economic gloom on both sides of the Atlantic, US online pharmacy Merckmedco.com has announced that it has reached a business milestone, becoming the first Internet-based pharmacy to achieve $1 billion in sales. Significantly, Merckmedco.com was never dotcom newcomer but instead an imaginative extension of the leading US pharmacy benefit management firm Merck-Medco – […]
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Pfizer Health Solutions Launches InformaCare
Pfizer Health Solutions Inc (PHS), the clinical informatics subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., has launched an advanced secure Internet-based disease management software package designed to enhance communications between US patients and healthcare professionals. The new system, called InformaCare, provides individualised treatment recommendations delivered over the Internet to help hospital and physician organisations better manage the care […]
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WebMD and Quintiles Plan Further Legal Action on Data Dispute
Settlement talks on a disputed health data rights agreement between Quintiles Transnational Corp., the international healthcare informatics firm, and e-health pioneer WebMD have broken down, with both companies announcing they plan further legal action. WebMD claims that the data rights agreement raises vital constitutional and legal issues about the collection and use of sensitive patient […]
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Pfizer, IBM and Microsoft Launch Physician IT Services Firm
Pfizer, IBM and Microsoft have jointly announced the launch of a newly formed healthcare technology applications company targeting the US office-based physicians, in a collaboration first announced in March. The new privately-held company, named Amicore, will focus on reducing physicians’ administrative workload and paperwork, by providing workflow and connectivity solutions. Plans call for the system […]
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