NHS Policy

NHS VistA – An Update

[Update with additional Links ahead of NHS England/Intellect workshop on 8 July] There is growing support for the production of a NHS version of the VistA the US open source EPR used by the US Veterans Administration and more recently by a number of health systems outside of the US. I’m a tremendous fan of…

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Electronic Health Records

This blog is the first of a series of extracts from a long paper on Electronic Health Records that I have been maintaining and revising since 2008. It’s been shared on a limited basis and has benefit from review and input by a number of individuals,  particularly fellow members of the BCS Primary Health Care Specailists Group…

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Time for Zero-Tolerance

I heard the blindingly obvious statement at the recent Intellect stream of BCS HC2013 Conference in Birmingham that “If you give people software that makes their life easier then adoption is not a problem” Given the clear truth of this statement, I wonder why so many “designing” and procuring NHS IT Systems manage to deliver…

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Healthcare and Banking

NHS leaders often make comparisons between the use of IT and digital service in banking and health. While we have much to learn from other sectors I feel this comparison means that those who make it don’t fully understand the challenge. What banking systems do is fundamentally very simple – They move money (unambiguously and simply represented by a…

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The power of information and digital technology to transform the NHS

I believe passionately in the power of information and digital technology to transform the way we deliver health and care, indeed I consider it essential if we are the meet the growing demands the health and care system faces within the resources likely to be available. We need to mobilise information to help us redesign…

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A Paperless NHS

Given the usual scant regard to the commonly accepted meaning of words that seems to be the norm in the NHS – “Paperless” is something that we now have in the majority of general practices and that many have had for some years and I’m really enthusiastic about the desire from the centre to drag the rest…

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Patient record access – A spur to innovation

I’ve been involved in one of the working groups which are part of the RCGP-Led Online Patient Access Project,  which has been funded by DH to help deliver on the Government’s promise to deliver online access for all to their GP records and a range of associated transactional services by 2015. As part of this…

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Standards are a barrier to innovation?

In a world where we are forced to reducing complex messages to sound bites this is mine on standards in health care IT: “Standards are a barrier to innovation”.  Of course this is a gross over simplification and in reality standards have an essential part to play in achieving the full potential of health IT…

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VistA for the NHS

Ewan Davis – Director of Woodcote Consulting shares his thoughts on VistA VistA is the open source electronic health record (EHR) system developed and used in the American Veteran’s Health Administration (VA). It is widely acknowledged that over recent years the VA has transformed itself from one of the worst healthcare provider to probably the best in the USA with its use…

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A Lost Opportunity?

Slightly of the informatics theme, but then there can’t be a successful health informatics programme, only a health transformation programme facilitated by informatics The current Government’s transformation programme is the most radical in the NHS’s history and we can not and should not try and consider health informatics issues in isolation. My political sympathies don’t…

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