New Quality Mark Launched for Health Information
A new website and "Triangle Mark" have been launched by the Centre for Health Information Quality (C-H-i-Q’s) to help raise standards for online and offline health information. The new site Hi Quality, has been backed by Department of Health funding , and was developed as part of C-H-i-Q’s quality assurance programme, recently implemented across all […]
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NHS Scotland Launches Updated IT Strategy
An updated IT strategy for the NHS in Scotland has been launched which aims to cut the 10m pieces of paperwork exchanged between GP practices and hospitals in Scotland. The new strategy will be supported by £2m in new funding for next year, on top of the £50m already committed over three years. The investment […]
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Medicdirect Launches Doctor Direct Helpline Service
UK health information website Medicdirect which currently supplies many of the leading ISP’s and broadcasters including Freeserve, NTL, GMTV, Telewest and AOL with much of their health channel content, has launched a telephone health helpline service manned by doctors. The new service, called Doctor Direct, forms part of a total revamp of Medicdirect’s content offering, […]
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GPs Get Connected to NHSDirect
Patients registered with a group of practices in South West London have become some of the first to benefit from encrypted clinical messaging to link together out of hours services, NHS Direct and GP practices. The new system enables a record of the details of an NHS Direct out of hours consultation to be securely […]
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NAO Praises NHS Direct Implementation
The first national evaluation of NHS Direct, the flagship NHS nurse-led telephone health advice service, concludes that the service has been a success and praises the way the project has been managed and the key IT system procured and implemented. The telephone advice service, which uses a national clinical decision support system, is redirecting up […]
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BT to Deliver the Technology for Scotland’s NHS 24
NHS 24, the Scottish version of NHS Direct, has placed a £20.5m contract with BT to provide the telephone communications systems that will underpin the new service and integrate it with electronic patient records. Under the ten-year partnership deal BT will deliver the managed network and IT services that will allow everyone in Scotland to […]
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Report Says NHS Likely to Miss EPR Targets
A key report published one year on from the NHS IT strategy update ‘Building the Information Core’ warns that almost all NHS health communities have serious doubts whether they can meet the targets on delivering Electronic Patient Records (EPR) and says many other targets now seem ambitious. In its first annual report on the service’s […]
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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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