In defence of the Spine
Ewan Davis surprises himself by setting out the case in defence of the NHS Spine. He argues that if we didn’t have it, we’d have to invent it.
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GP raises concern about PDS security
Renewed concerns have been raised about the security of the Personal Demographics Service after a GP was able to access details of colleagues and staff without being detected. Dr Paul Golik, a GP in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and secretary of North Staffordshire Local Medical Committee, told the GP magazine Pulse that he had accessed his own […]
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GP2GP hits half a million transfers
More than 500,000 electronic patient records have now been transferred between GP practices using GP2GP software, NHS Connecting for Health has announced. The achievement of 500,000 record transfers between practices is the latest milestone for the project which covers more than 5,000 GP practices in England. The scheme currently only involves practices using EMIS LV […]
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New demographics services for Wales
Informing Healthcare is to roll-out its own demographics services from this month after sharing systems with England for more than two decades. The first phase of the Welsh Demographic Services, developed by Informing Healthcare in collaboration with Health Solutions Wales, will deliver online patient tracing, batch tracing and an application programming interface to provide links […]
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Pharmacists get access to PDS for EPS R2
Community pharmacists are to be issued with new smartcards to give them access to the Personal Demographics Service. NHS Connecting for Health and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee have released guidance on smartcard arrangements for Release 2 of the Electronic Prescription Service, which CfH expects to go live in 2009. More than 20,000 pharmacists already have […]
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IT costs factored into organ donor decision
The UK Organ Donation Taskforce this week came out against moving to a system of presumed consent for organ donation, arguing the costs could outweigh the benefits. The government has accepted its recommendations and instead launched a £4.5m campaign aimed at boosting the number of donations. However, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that he […]
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Spine problems force trusts to switch off CRS
Trusts across England were forced to switch off their connection to the Personal Demographics Service, after a weekend upgrade led to the system suffering from ‘intermittent problems’ leading some to stop using their electronic record systems. The weekend upgrade, called Spine release 2008-A, was a major upgrade to the Spine PDS service. The PDS is […]
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GP claims PDS increases information theft
The practice of extracting confidential patient information from GP practice staff has become much more frequent since the introduction of the Personal Demographics Service according to a GP IT representative. Dr Paul Cundy, co-chair of the Joint IT Committee of the BMA and Royal College of General Practitioners, is warning GPs and their staff to […]
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CfH awards BT contract to replace NSTS
A new service developed by BT, called the Demographics Batch Service (DBS) is set to replace the NHS Strategic Tracing Service (NSTS) batch trace in summer 2008. The new system will provide access to the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) for all trusts using legacy systems not already linked to the PDS. Ultimately it will be […]
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It’s all about access
David Baker, MD of Clinical Solutions, tells Jon Hoeksma, that his company’s strategy is based on providing the means to access to health services, no matter the point of contact or circumstances.
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