GP practices report benefits from GP2GP
Clinicians and administrative staff have reported a range of substantial benefits from use of Connecting for Health’s GP2GP electronic records transfer programme, according to CfH. The Department of Health’s IT agency said initial findings from an online survey of GP2GP users were “extremely positive” with “high proportions” of clinicians and administrative staff reporting that GP2GP […]
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KPMG to provide digital strategy for NHS
The Department of Health has commissioned management consultants KPMG to report on a vision for a digital strategy for the NHS.
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Swine Flu tracking on Qsurveillance
Healthcare IT system supplier EMIS is encouraging its GPs practices to sign up to its primary care tracking database QSurveillance to help provide national and local information on swine flu. EMIS said the QSurveillance database is already providing information on 23m patients from 3500 GP practices and that the level of detail provided in reports […]
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Vaulting ambition
The Conservatives may give commercial health record platforms a big role in their NHS IT strategy. But how are they doing in the US?
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GP IT systems fall short on urgent care
IT and phone systems used by GP practices fail to help practices measure how well they are doing at providing in-hours urgent care, according to a Department of Health commissioned report. The review of urgent care by the Primary Care Foundation, a consultancy firm specialising in urgent care, found that IT and phone systems currently […]
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Interpol issues swine flu spam warning
The international police organisation Interpol has issued a warning about the potential for criminals to exploit the swine flu outbreak through spam emails and websites selling illegal, unlicensed or fake medicines. The organisation based in Lyon, France, which has 187 member countries over five continents, said internet security firms were reporting that 3-4% of spam […]
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Audit Scotland flags concerns with ECR
Scotland’s national audit body has raised concerns about the scope and quality of the country’s Emergency Care Summary. In its latest report on medicines management, Audit Scotland says that nine out of ten health boards have now implemented the ECR in Accident and Emergency departments. The ECR contains information from GP records and is intended to help staff […]
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INPS warns of possible QoF problems
Around 20% of GP practices in the UK may have errors in their end of year returns for the Quality and Outcomes Framework because of a fault in their INPS system, it has emerged. INPS issued a fix for the fault on Thursday and has advised all practices to run a new QoF report. It […]
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Mandatory incident reporting considered
The House of Commons Health Committee is looking at whether the national reporting of patient safety incidents should be made mandatory, as part of its investigation into patient safety. The present National Patient Safety Agency reporting system relies on trusts owning up to their mistakes through a voluntary system. But a recent Healthcare Commission report […]
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NICE to take charge of QoF
The Department of Health has announced that it is to go ahead with its plans to put the National Institute for Health and Clinical Evidence in charge of the Quality and Outcomes Framework from next month.
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