NHS IT spending lags behind Wanless targets
Forecasts from trade association, Intellect, suggest that NHS spending on IT in England is likely to undershoot significantly the figure needed to achieve service transformation and support greater efficiency and patient safety, a session at HC2006 heard. The panel discussion led by the Intellect Healthcare Group looked at Intellect forecasts which show actual NHS spending […]
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PCTs start transferring patient records by CD
Practices from two primary care trusts in Hertfordshire are about to start transferring patients records on CD, ahead of the arrival of the national GP2GP record transfer project. St Albans & Harpenden and Hertsmere PCTs have set up a system that allows practices to send and receive CD-ROMs holding the entire patient record including attachments. […]
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Implementation schedule slips in South
The introduction of the NHS Care Records Service in the South of England is set to be delayed following a revamp of the software to introduce new functionality and to address issues identified in the "white knuckle" initial implementation at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford. E-Health insider has learned from well placed sources that the next […]
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Strong growth projected in French health ICT
A new analysis of the French health ICT market published by Frost and Sullivan argues that an increased emphasis on patient safety will provide the drive for new ICT investments, particularly for clinical systems. The report says that the increasing use of ICT in the healthcare sector is anticipated to help avoid medical errors, improve […]
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US speakers for first CfH nursing conference
US nursing experience of using clinical IT systems will be shared at Connecting for Health’s first conference for nurses and midwives in March. Victoria Bradley and Carol Steltenkamp of the University of Kentucky Medical School has been invited to speak at the conference which will be opened by England’s chief nursing officer (CNO). CfH say […]
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Local trust data overwritten by Choose and Book
E-Health Insider has learned that some hospitals linked to the national Choose and Book appointment booking system are having some local patient record details unexpectedly over-written each time they receive an electronic referral from the NHS spine. As a result, the affected hospitals have to manually re-enter deleted patient details — such as the patient’s […]
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Wristband risk to patient safety highlighted
A drive to raise awareness of the importance of patients wearing hospital wristbands should make barcode and RFID technology more effective and help prevent errors. The initiative launched this week by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) was discussed at a healthcare group meeting of Intellect, the trade association for the UK’s high tech industries. Chris Ranger, […]
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ETP potential
EHI talks to Tim Donohoe, group director at Connecting for Health, about the development of the national electronic prescribing service.
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IT vital for sustainable health systems, says PwC
Healthcare systems will need a ‘digital backbone’ to remain sustainable in the face of increasing demand, rising costs, uneven quality and misaligned incentives, a survey by consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) indicates. The third PwC Healthcast sought the views of more than 580 executives of hospitals and hospital systems, physician groups, governments, medical suppliers and employers in […]
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IT has critical role in patient safety, says watchdog
Public service watchdog, the National Audit Office, has underlined the key role IT should play in improving patient safety not only in avoiding medication errors but in supporting audit and providing information to professionals. An NAO report published today identifies medication errors, record documentation errors and communication failures as leading causes of incidents in which […]
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