Asthma phone reviews won’t count for QOF
Telephone reviews for patients with asthma cannot count towards Quality and Outcome Framework targets, national arbitrators have ruled. The national Implementation Coordination Group (ICG) for the nGMS contract has decided that reviews must be conducted face-to-face following a dispute after two primary care trusts disallowed telephone claims. The ruling has been described as a "retrograde […]
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Cornwall NHS staff get VoIP phone badges
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust has issued its staff with voice-activated handsfree ‘badges’, worn around the neck on a lanyard, which can put any user in touch with another member of staff just by saying their name or department into a microphone. The Vocera system (below), which was installed and is managed by BT, runs […]
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ECGs by phone for GPs in the north west
GPs in Lancashire and Cumbria SHA have started using a telephone-based clinical monitoring service, using small devices that take ECGs which are then interpreted over the phone while the patient waits. Broomwell Healthwatch, based in Manchester, have supplied monitoring devices to several GP practices. These devices are already in several practices in Preston, Chorley and […]
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Ofcom calls for review of hospital phone charges
A review group is to be set up to look at hospital bedside telephone and entertainment services and see whether these can be provided without controversial high charges for incoming calls to patients. Ofcom, the communications watchdog, recommended that the review should be conducted by the Department of Health following its own six month investigation […]
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Bedside phone enquiry likely to raise wider issues
The chief executive of hospital bedside telephone and television supplier, Patientline, has predicted that a regulatory investigation into its business will raise ‘interesting questions’ about hospital charges not only for phone calls but also for other services. In a briefing reported in the Financial Times, Patientline chief executive, Derek Lewis, hints that more profound issues than […]
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Asthma reviews by phone don’t count for QoF, say PCTs
National arbitrators for the GP contract are to rule on whether telephone reviews for patients with asthma can count towards Quality and Outcome Framework targets following two primary care trusts’ decision to disallow them. West Wiltshire PCT and Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT have told practices that telephone reviews for patients with asthma will not […]
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Preventing errors in phone consultations
A reminder to doctors to beware of the pitfalls of using the telephone to communicate with patients has come from researchers at Yale School of Medicine. Using a case-based approach, the article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, shows how errors in telephone communication can result in outcomes ranging from inconvenience and anxiety to […]
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Mobile phone transmits your ECG
Engineers at Loughborough University have devised a mobile phone that easily receive, collate and send a person’s ECG and other vital signs and send them directly to clinicians, eliminating the need for large, fixed, telecare systems in patients’ homes. Professor Bryan Woodward and Dr Fadlee Rasid from the university’s department of electronic and electrical engineering have developed […]
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Ofcom investigates patient phone systems
Patientline has said it will suspend new installations in hospitals pending the outcome of an Ofcom inquiry into complaints about pricing of calls and competitive practices. Ofcom, the independent telecommunications and broadcasting regulator, has announced that it has started an investigation today into prices charged to patients by Patientline and another healthcare communications provider, Premier […]
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Wireless LAN phone can survive hospital environment
A US-based company has developed a ‘rugged’ wireless phone specifically for the UK wireless healthcare market that can survive being dropped several stories and having fluid spilled over it. The NetLink h340 (right), manufactured by Colorado-based SpectraLink, is designed to work over low-power hospital wireless LANs, integrate into the main hospital switchboard, and also run […]
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