European PACS market growth

The value of the European picture archiving and communications system market is predicted to double over the next six years, driven by demand for radiology information systems.New analysis from Frost and Sullivan has found that the market was valued at €535m ($679m) in 2009 and estimates that this will reach €1,065m ($1,353m) in 2016.  For more, click here.

Siemens secure Royal Bolton radiology deal

Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has announced that it has signed a multi-million pound managed equipment service agreement with Siemens Healthcare.  The 15-year contract will see the trust receive the latest radiology equipment alongside maintenance of its existing systems and user training. Click here for more.

iSoft resignation over losses...

Gary Cohen has resigned as the chief executive of iSoft as the company has announced major losses in its full-year results. For more, click here .

Telehealth Solutions Win National Framework Agreement

Telehealth Solutions  announced that they have been awarded a framework agreement for providing Telehealth by the procurement company Buying Solutions. Click here for more.

pharmacy automation systems market in Europe is experiencing a tremendous growth

The pharmacy automation systems market in Europe is experiencing a tremendous growth spurt. Until recently, most pharmacies have been either without automation or have employed very basic automation systems. In response, the adoption rate of automation systems across Europe has been progressing from basic prescription management systems to advanced medication pick-up and drug dispensing automation systems. Click here for more on this story

More NHS data security breaches...

A trust has signed an agreement to tighten up its data protection procedures after more than 100 copies of patient records were found on a CD left at a bus stop.  Follow the story @ HSJ

Mind the IM&T gap...

The introduction of the NPfIT  started the demise of local IM&T investment by imposing a straight-jacket on NHS Trusts. Meanwhile, their European counter-parts have been forging ahead, assessing and implementing technologies which are bringing new efficiencies and cost savings. The pertinent question seems to be not whether can the NHS afford to catch-up, rather can the NHS afford not to catch-up?

See e-Health Insider for an opinion piece on the above.

Orion Health launches Rapsody 4

Orion Health has  launched the latest version of its integration engine, Rhapsody 4. Rhapsody 4 provides greater support for the latest industry trends, technologies and standards, including secure web services, already adopted by groups such as HL7 and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise.Paul de Bazin, Rhapsody product manager said the solution now provides greater support and features for organisations using service oriented architecture (SOA) to solve their integration challenges

In April 2010, Orion Health signed a global partnership agreement for Philips to deploy Rhapsody Integration Engine across its portfolio of healthcare informatics solutions. See e-Health Insider for more.

SUS - new Best Practice Guidance

A Best Practice Guidance has been developed to give best practice advice on data quality areas including: access, security and confidentiality; role based access control; pseudonymisation; SUS modules and data quality.

Sharing of Data Extracts in Secondary Uses Service (SUS) - New guidance!

New guidance on sharing of data extracts is now available from the SUS Data Quality and Operational Support Team. 

Availability conundrums... chasing the 5 9s!

Have you ever thought whether 99.999% availabilty is possible or even desirable?  If so, there is an excellent article on calculating availability, see Andrew Hiles’ article @ http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0267.htm

Accenture on the information governance challenge for health IT

Accenture has published a thought-leadership report on the Information Governance (data privacy, confidentiality, security, quality and integrity) challenges posed by e-health solutions.

Accenture argues that “standalone e-health systems deliver clinical and administrative benefits but do not enable organisations to realize the full potential of e-health. To deliver the greatest possible value in terms of cost reduction and improved health outcomes, disparate health care management systems, telemedicine solutions and health information platforms must be able to securely and effectively share data [...] Doing so requires health networks that connect public health agencies, provider organizations, hospitals, clinics, diagnostic laboratories, health service commissioners and individual clinicians. To achieve this level of integration, some organizations have invested heavily in integrated health information solutions.”
Accenture argues: “While the importance and benefits of sharing health information are widely recognised, organisations have struggled to implement effective EHR solutions. Complex technical, organisational, regulatory and cultural challenges have increased implementation risks and led to relatively high solution failure rates.”
In terms of boosting success rates, Accenture points to the need for a robust information governance policy in place. Accenture's report suggests: “By embracing the breadth of information governance, e-health practitioners can develop effective policies, processes and tools that support the enterprise-wide adoption of common information principles. This consolidated approach to information governance enables health care organisations to effectively manage, maintain and control patient information in support of robust patient care.”

ActiveHealth and IBM Pioneer Cloud Computing approach

IBM  and ActiveHealth Management, an Aetna  subsidiary, unveiled a new cloud computing and clinical decision support solution that will enable medical practices, hospitals and states to change the way they deliver healthcare, providing better quality care at a lower cost.


IBM and ActiveHealth Management worked together to create the Collaborative Care Solution that gives physicians and patients access to the information they need to improve the overall quality of care, without the need to invest in new infrastructure.

French EHR - take 2?

The delayed French EHR , Dossier Medical Personnel,will be launched by the end of 2010.
The EHR will allow patients to organise their health records for consultations with their GP and other healthcare providers and give them access to medication histories and a summary of recent appointments. The second part of the programme will be developed over the next few years to allow medical records to be shared among healthcare professionals.

The announcement follows the re-launch of the DMP last year. The project was scrapped in 2008.

Making way for Microsoft HealthVault?

E-health insider is reporting that Microsoft “stands ready” to work with the government on personal health records.

Should the coalition want to move forward with plans to introduce new personal health records, Microsoft says it would hope to support any such plans with its HealthVault platform.

Microsoft stated that while it does not see Microsoft’s HealthVault platform as a replacement to the hotly debated summary care record although it does have the potential to integrate with it.

Dr Foster future under review...

The review will explore strategic options for the future of Dr Foster Intelligence. This follows the recent White Paper 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', which stated the Government’s commitment to the introduction of an NHS information revolution, providing patients with quality information and data on all aspects of healthcare.  This review is in line with the Government’s policy to maximise the value of assets and commercial opportunities as explained in the findings of the Arm’s Length Bodies Review.

Health Minister Simon Burns said: “In the White Paper 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', we set out a vision for an information revolution to give patients greater choice and control. We will publish our information strategy paper in the Autumn. This review will ensure that the Department of Health is making the most of Dr Foster Intelligence.”

The end of an era for the NPfIT (as we know it)...

“The NHS Programme is big, expensive, not delivering and very New Labour,” said one source close to the Cabinet Office. “What happens to it will set the tone for the whole of public sector ICT.”

The sun is setting on the NpfIT and CfH.  During the election, both the Tories and Lib Dems attacked the NPfIT. However, rather than terminating the programme in its entirety, the cost and complexity of terminating the LSP contracts, the government will aim to renegotiate the scope of these contracts.  For example, public technology.net reports that apparently CSC has been asked to cut 30% from the value of its LSP contract.  What does this mean for CfH?  It appears that CfH will be axed and the Cabinet Office will take over responsibility for NHS IT whilst the Department of Health's Informatics Directorate may take up some of the responsibility.   A formal announcement is imminent...

If you remember, Christine Connelly, (DH DG of informatics), had set a deadline for Morecambe Bay to go live with the latest version of Lorenzo (v1.9) by the end of March 2010. CSC had missed this deadline, but trust eventually went live with the iSoft system later in the summer. It now appears to be having issues with its legacy patient administration system, iPM and with feeding information from iPM into Lorenzo.

E-Health insider reported that a Board meeting presentation identified a number of issues including “data migration fallout from trying to shoehorn iPM into a rigid RTT structure,” and backlogs in translating referrals into episodes of care. It also lists “inconsistent behaviour being exhibited on occasions by Lorenzo.”

This is not over...

NHS North Yorkshire and York Telehealth expansion

NHS North Yorkshire and York are planning to purchase an additional 2 000 telehealth systems to support patients living with long-term health conditions in the area, making it the largest scale Telehealth programme in the United Kingdom.


In 2008-2009, more than 6 000 patients in North Yorkshire and York were admitted to hospital with respiratory or cardiac problems. The announcement of the additional 2 000 Telehealth systems follows an eight month trial of the Telehealth technology which has demonstrated the huge benefits it can bring for both patients and clinicians alike.

WSDAN's first briefing paper 'Sustaining innovation in telehealth and telecare' has been launched.

WSDANis an online resource on telecare, telehealth and the management of long-term conditions. The Network is run by The King’s Fund and DH Care Networks and is funded by the Department of Health.

This briefing paper is just the first in a series of WSDAN briefing papers on ‘Sustaining Innovation in Telehealth and Telecare’. More to follow!

http://biomed-me.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/telehealth.png

Best of breed or single vendors of health IT solutions?

The choices Healthcare CIOs make between single vendor enterprise solutions and best-of-breed offerings are driven by budget constraints that often reveal the healthcare haves and have-nots.


Some also think that best of breed vendors tend to score low on being able to offer truly integrated offerings. Do you agree with the attached article opinions?

RFID applications - ENISA opinion on industry PIA draft proposals

ENISA (European Network & Information Security Agency) has published its opinion on the official draft
of the industry proposal published in the European Commission website  and submitted to Article 29
Working Party.  ENISA found that, alhtough the industry proposal was a very good starting point, the proposal does not follow a tested and comprehensive risk methodological analysis. For a press release and the opinion itself, check the link

SUS handling of Sensitive Records and Data Protection Act Section 10 requests: New Guidance!

knowledge.ic.nhs.uk

New guidance has recently been published to support the SUS handling of sensitive records and data protection relating to CDS XML and validation and patient identifiable data relating to CDS Version 6 SUS. 

This guidance replaces the previous guidance issued by SUS on 20 October 2009. Check

Cloud computing in healthcare?

Last year, ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) has published an risks assessment on cloud computing business model and technologies. The result is an in-depth and independent analysis that outlines some of the information security benefits and key security risks of cloud computing. The report provides also a set of practical recommendations.

This is an in-depth and independent analysis that outlines some of the information security benefits and key security risks of cloud computing.

NHS Trusts and other healthcare organisations will find this to be a very useful document in understanding what cloud computing is and the implications of this model.  It can be accessed here, ENISA Cloud computing risk assessment

Verizon's Cloud Computing - The US answer to the Summary Care Record?

The Verizon Health Information Exchange, one of the first services of its kind in the U.S., will consolidate clinical patient data from providers and translate it into a standardized format that can be securely accessed over the Web. Participating exchange providers across communities, states and regions will be able to request patient data via a secure online portal, regardless of the IT systems and specific protocols the providers use. This will enable providers to obtain a more complete view of a patient's health history, no matter where the data is stored. Since the Verizon HEalth Information Exchange will be delivered via Verizon's cloud computing platform, health care organizations will be able to use their current IT systems, processes and workflows, without large additional capital expenditures. The service will be ideal for large and small health care providers. For more info, check SearchCloudcomputing.com.


Obviously, it is early days yet, but it will be interesting to see how this story progresses and whether the new government would be interested in pushing towards that direction... Remember this? "Google or Microsoft could hold NHS patient records say Tories" More on the use of cloud computing in health care to follow!

Technology adoption in the NHS - to spend or not to spend...

The HSJ is reporting that NHS managers are still slow to adopt technology new technology that can save money. Nevetherless, Primary Care Trusts NHS Coventry and NHS Warwickshire have gone live with a new child health management platform, CarePlus Child Health. This McKesson UK system, replaces three systems from the two Trusts.  The hope is that this will create cost efficiencies and reduce the “administrative burden”. Four child health administration teams across Coventry and Warwickshire – around 50 people - will use the system, with information also available to clinicians to assist in patient care. It’s hoped the platform, deployed on time and on budget, will also help deliver a “single vision of child health that will facilitate patient care and service redesign.” http://www.publictechnology.net/sector/nhs-health/careplus-child-health-goes-live-coventry-and-warwickshire

Summary Care Record - UCL evalutation report

UCL published its report last month on the Summary Care Record (SCR). UCL reported that "as of 1 March 2010, of the approximately 8.5 million people who had been sent information about the SCR, 0.65% had opted out. 1.2 million SCRs existed and 14,266 had been accessed. SCRs were being accessed in 4% of all encounters and in 21% when an SCR was available. This varied considerably depending on setting, the type of clinician and their level of experience. Fewer then 30 SCRs were being accessed in secondary care settings per week across the country." 

One of the findings was that despite some progress (since the 2008 Early Implementer Evalutation report), the anticipated benefits of the SCR have yet to be realised in full. For example, the UCL report stated that :

-SCRs sometimes contain inaccuracies (e.g. incomplete medication lists or missing allergies), but that clinicians use their judgement when interpreting such data and take account of other sources of information including the patient.

- The evaluation did not directly demonstrate an improvement in patient safety but the findings were consistent with a rare but important impact of the SCR on reducing medication errors.

-SCR was not associated with the hoped-for reduction in consultation length, nor did it appear to reduce hospital admission.

However, the report did stress that this finding needs to be tempered by the fact that the SCR is an evolving technology at an early stage of implementation.

Has anyone read the report and do you think the SCR has a future in the new NHS environment under the Tories/LibDems?

Information Standards Board website -update

The Information Standards Board website has been updated to provide better access to information on the approval of information, data and technical standards.http://www.isb.nhs.uk/

Election fever...not long to go now

For months everybody has been talking about this election.  Everybody that is anybody has been providing views on what impact this election will have on health informatics.  What cuts will be made to achieve efficiencies in the NHS and for how long?  Will the NPfIT be dropped with Google and Microsoft stepping in? There is certainly a lot of uncertainty in the air (especially with rumours of NHS jobs cuts coming our way).  Hopefully, we will know soon either way...

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