Number cruncher
Fiona Barr talks to Professor Sir Brian Jarman of Imperial College’s Dr Foster Unit about using hospital data to uncover variance and improve quality of care.
Feature
PCTs register a third of pharmacists for smartcards
Around one in three community pharmacists have been registered to use a smartcard to use the electronic prescription service (EPS) according to Connecting for Health but pharmacy representatives and businesses are continuing to raise concerns about the speed of rollout. Connecting for Health has published its first figures on the registration of pharmacists for smartcards […]
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Choice? What choice?
Over a year since the announcement of GP system choice, many practices still only have one package to choose from. Fiona Barr investigates.
Feature
iSoft to preview Lorenzo Primary Care at HC2006
iSoft has announced that it will be giving a preview of its new primary care product Lorenzo at this year’s HC2006 health informatics conference at Harrogate, Yorkshire, from March 20-22. The preview will be the first public outing for the new primary care offering, expected to be the "core" primary care solution for GPs in […]
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New GP choice proposals outlined
NHS Connecting for Health has outlined new proposals for delivering GP system choice based on a multi-step accreditation process. If adopted, the approach could potentially enable practices to buy systems either directly from suppliers or from their local service providers and still have them funded by the national programme. The proposals now being consulted on […]
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PCT forced to revert to paper systems
A primary care trust has been forced to abandon its planned move to a Connecting for Health community patient administration system after problems with the migration left staff working from paper records for ten days. An e-mail seen by EHI Primary Care reveals that Burntwood, Lichfield and Tamworth PCT in Staffordshire faced insurmountable problems migrating from […]
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Every PCT to miss Choose and Book target
The Department of Health (DH) has admitted that not a single primary care trust in England is likely to be in a position to meet its next Choose and Book target and is relying on paper solutions to deliver its flagship policy on choice at referral. Just over 6,000 bookings have been made through Choose […]
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North Cumbria PCTs get community PAS
Three primary care trusts in North Cumbria have begun implementation of new community PAS systems that connect with the NHS data spine, as part of the NHS National Programme for IT. District nurses and community hospital staff across three PCTs, Carlisle and District, Eden Valley and West Cumbria, are now beginning to use the system installed by […]
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CfH report hails “foundations” of reform
Over 30,000 clinicians are now registered users of the NHS Care Records Service ‘data spine’ and over 124,000 users have registered with Contact, the secure e-mail and directory service, according to the annual report from Connecting for Health (CfH). Chief executive, Richard Granger, concludes in his foreword to the report: "The foundations have been […]
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iSOFT unveils Lorenzo demo
iSOFT have released a Flash demo of their enterprise-wide clinical and administrative application Lorenzo on their website, and is asking for feedback from users. The demo, which is not fully functional but aims to guide users through some of the most important aspects of the system, was uploaded to iSOFT’s website with little fanfare at […]
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