InterSystems Demonstrates Scalability of Primary Care Systems
Database systems supplier InterSystems, has announced that it has carried out successful scalability tests of its CACHÉ database product in collaboration with primary care clinical systems supplier EMIS to demonstrate how primary care electronic records can be scaled to a national-scale system with a small hardware footprint. The scalability tests were based on demonstrating how […]
News
Electronic Prescription Transfers Added to Data Spine
Digital imaging and electronic transfer of prescriptions are the two major new applications added to the new expanded Output Based Specification (OBS2) for Integrated Care Records Services (ICRS) and the national data spine. The weighty new documents describe a considerably thicker national ‘data spine’, with additional features and clinical functionality delivered at an early stage. […]
News
IBM To Consolidate NI Health IT
IBM has announced that the first applications have gone live under its ten-year contract to provide Directorate of Information Systems of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) in Northern Ireland to with consolidated IT systems. The ten-year deal was signed with the DHSSPS in January to provide it with a regional, consolidated […]
News
iSOFT Demonstrates 10,000 Concurrent Users
UK health IT firm iSOFT, has announced that in conjunction with HP and Microsoft it has completed benchmark tests of its electronic patient record (EPR) system, with up to 10,000 concurrent users. The benchmark tests were performed on iSOFT’s EPR application software (i.EPR) and achieved sub-second transaction response times. This benchmark, one of the largest […]
News
US Institute Publishes Core Capabilities for EHRs
In a new report the independent Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the US National Academies, has published a set of eight core functions that electronic health records (EHRs) should be able to offer. The IOM report, ‘Key Capabilities of an Electronic Health Record System’, is intended to provide a basic ‘functional model’ for an […]
News
Basque GPs Suspended over Centralised Data Protest
Two GPs from the Basque Country in northern Spain have been suspended without pay, apparently for refusing to use a centralised database of patient records, writes SA Mathieson. The Basque health service, Osakidetza, last year implemented a central database called Osabide. According to Dr Juan Gérvas, a Madrid doctor and visiting professor at Baltimore’s Johns […]
News
First Anniversary for National IT Programme
Birthday greetings to the NHS National IT Programme! It’s 12 months since a new centrally-driven plan for transforming the NHS through IT was announced at Healthcare Computing 2002. So what illumination can we expect at this year’s event in Harrogate? Word is that it may well be a lot less than people had hoped. The […]
News
Medical Records Found on Memory Stick
An incident in which a Cheshire estate agent found a memory stick she had bought contained confidential clinical records has highlighted the NHS’s failure to implement effective encryption services to protect patient information. Bolton Royal Hospitals NHS Trust has launched an investigation into how confidential medical records for 13 cancer patients were contained on a […]
News
Fife Signs up for Oasis
Fife Acute Hospitals Trust has awarded a 15-year contract for electronic patient records (EPR) to Siemens Healthcare who will be provide the Oasis EPR system supplied by its British healthcare systems strategic partners Elan Technologies. Oasis will be delivered in the form of e-oasis, Elan’s browser-based EPR that has been designed to simplify the collection […]
News
Gates Says NHS Must Deliver in Digital Age
It’s not every day that you get to see the richest man in the world, and the gawp factor must have accounted for a good number of the 150-odd NHS chief executives and directors that attended last week’s Microsoft-sponsored Department of Health IT conference. But the man from Redmond offered them little in way of […]
News