Scotland has a perfectly goood EPR system you know!

Posted on July 12, 2008 in Prescriptions

The English NHS has for a number of years been attempting to implement an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and an Electronic Health Record (EHR). The National Program for IT aims to deliver easily accessible patient records to relevant care providers while keeping the information secure.  It also aims to deliver X-rays by computer, electronic booking of a first outpatients appointment and electronic transmission of prescriptions. (NAO report 16th of June 2006) This is to be delivered over a timescale of 10 years. The NAO claims that areas of this program are on track.  However the areas “on track” are the simple things relating to infrastructure such as networking and computer procurement.  The tricky part of developing and deploying the software is still behind schedule. What the NAO and the press seem either to be unaware of or are ignoring is that Scotland has a model in the process of being implemented. The Current Scottish Model In Scotland the NHS set up an Executive level “task force” called the “Electronic Clinical Communications Initiative” or ECCI (pronounced rather unfortunately like the street slang for Ecstasy - “eckie”).  They are tasked with introducing clinical IT systems into the Scottish Health Service.  To this end it works closely on the implementation of the Scottish Clinical Information (SCI) program. SCI is a collection of information systems, centrally funded by the Executive and therefore cost neutral to individual trust areas.  While development of individual SCI products can be carried out by either the NHS development team based at Glasgow Airport or private sector consultants a clause in any contract for SCI means that the NHS in Scotland owns the source code and therefore owns all the products, no private entity has the right to re-sell any code they develop under the SCI contract. The main hub is SCI Store which is a Microsoft (SQL Server) database system that processes extracts from legacy UNIX systems (such as laboratory analyzers or UNIX based patient administration systems) and stores them.  Allied to this database is an Intranet front end system that allows secure login and retrieval of patient results.  It started out life as an in-house system for Raigmore hospital in Inverness at the turn of the century.  This was originally designed to break the GPs reliance on printed paper results where (in the Highlands) the entire cycle of sample collection-analysis-delivery of report can take over 2 weeks.  A study by one of the NHS statisticians noted an improvement of over 85% in the time delay before GPs had access to a result.  Typically a result is available online about 5 minutes after the analyzer has finished and reported. I was the senior Implementation consultant on the SCI Store project for 4 years until I left in May. Store exposes a number of “web services”.  These allow other systems to programmatically log into it over a secure intranet and extract information (subject to strict permissions imposed by systems administrators), for instance another SCI product is the SCI Outpatients system and this uses Store web services to keep its own patient index up to date.  Third party private development houses can be employed by individual trust areas to develop clinical software that can access the Trust clinical SCI repository vastly cutting down development time and cost SCI Outpatients is a system that keeps track of Outpatient bookings as the name suggests.  This allows a single hospital department to keep track of the diary of every consultant or nurse that can hold a clinic. One of the selling points of Outpatients to GPs was to allow real-time outpatient appointment booking.  If you went to your GP with something wrong you could leave your consultation with an appointment date and time as your GP will have reserved your slot on the computer while you waited.  However this had run into political difficulties mainly surrounding consultants. Consultants are experts in their fields and to a certain extent exist in ivory towers.  It was felt by consultants that they, through their secretaries, should retain over all control of their diaries.  To let a mere GP book slots may ruin a tee-off time they had planned.  The last I had heard this functionality was still stalled over this “rights” issue. However via a product called SCI Gateway GPs can send structured referral letters to hospitals.  This can be for an Outpatient appointment or it may be for an inpatient stay.  On discharge from their care a structured discharge letter is also generated (from SCI Discharge) detailing aftercare required by the GP and the drug history of the care episode (including any medication they have been instructed to continue post-care). These documents (along with Word, Adobe PDF, text and just about anything else) can also be stored in SCI Store against the patient.  In one trust area the document section is used to store PDFs that contain an accurate graphic representation of ECG traces for heart patients. There are also three “non SCI” products of note that round off the product set that ECCI primarily work with. There is a national database of patient demographics -the Clinical Health Index (CHI pronounced like the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet).  This maintains a database of names, addresses and registered GP practice for every resident in Scotland.  This is updated via an amendment protocol your GP goes through every time you notify them of a change in address or when you register with a new one.  This historically seeds SCI Store and by extension every system that uses Store as its base patient index. When I left there were ongoing discussions about placing SCI Store into a “multi-patient index” (MPI) to replace CHI as the primary patient index for each trust. 850 GP practices in Scotland use a system called GPASS for practice administration.  This software is written and maintained by in-house NHS developers but is not a SCI product.  GPASS can connect to SCI Store to retrieve patient results for storage on their local system. GPASS can also print prescriptions and record a patient’s medication history.  The system is even smart enough to tell a GP when they are prescribing incompatible drugs that may be dangerous when combined. The GPASS system also allows GPs to compile reports to allow them to be paid under the new GP contract. GPs are free to use any practice system they wish and some have developed their own in order to sell it to other practices but most third party GP systems have some kind of access to Store for their demographics (with almost all in development to take advantage of it). Finally there is the Emergency Care Summary (ECS).  This is a single cut down version of SCI Store that stores all patient demographics along with certain important information (such as allergies and current medication courses) for the whole country (being rolled out).  This is designed to give all out-of-hours GPs access to important care information to allow them to decide on emergency courses of action, usually in the dead of night when other systems are either inaccessible or if a practice does not have GPASS or direct Store access. Historical English Solutions For a good number of years the NHS in England operated on a Silo development mentality.  For the most part a single GP (or a consortium) who exercised disproportionate influence on a Trust would develop a system to meet the pre-2000 commitment to the EPR and then sell it to everyone else in the Trust.  Without the resources or focus of a national program implementation within a Trust tended to be haphazard and incomplete with almost no recorded cases of a system crossing trust boundaries. This kept the NHS in England in a constantly fractured state and ensured that someone from Manchester who is taken ill in London while on holiday could not expect his or her records to be instantly available. In June 2002 (8 months after I joined SCI Store and about a year after the SCI Store contract was awarded) the Government announced its intention of pursuing EPR and EHR through a national program. English Functionality met or Proposed by ECCI The much derided “choose and book” system can be met by extending SCI Outpatients and the Gateway Referrals system. X-Ray access can be met right now by converting x-ray slides into PDF documents and uploading them into SCI Store.  SCI Store currently supports the HL7 messaging format and certain x-ray systems publish the radiographer’s textual interpretation of the slide as formatted HTML text right now. Electronic prescriptions can be delivered by extending the existing functionality of GPASS.  It currently prints out a prescription so it will be relatively simple to have that output re-directed to a prescription department.  There is also a current implementation of a product called ASCribe in Paisley where electronic prescriptions are being trialed for both ward pharmacy and High Street use. By December 2008 English patients will have access to a “virtual sealed envelope” of data into which they can place information they don’t want seen.  SCI Store implemented this in February 2006 with version 2.2 of the software in compliance with the Data Protection Act. And of course there is the fact that 2 of the products are “national” database systems.  Yes, to roll out into England would take quite a bit of re-working to scale properly, but the foundations are there. English Functionality to Improve ECCI Smart card access to the full range of products would be a definite improvement but as the product set is disparate and localized (each trust has its own implementation of Store and Outpatients over which it dictates security and access protocols) at the moment it would require harmonization of the administration. Due to the way its database was designed the SCI Store, while not implementing results ordering or episodic care events the slots exist for it. Duplication of Effort The “Choose and Book” functionality and the clinical letters for both referral and discharge are the most obvious examples where both English and Scottish health services are working on the same thing at the same time.  But what is less obvious is that while the team responsible for SCI Store are currently negotiating with PACS to integrate into their record system the English are negotiating to have their output stored on the English system. Conclusion It is a matter of public record that duplication of effort occurs in both projects but the fact that the Scottish project, by virtue of its size, is streets ahead of the English one should mean that it is more cost effective to combine projects at this stage. Frequently throughout my career on the Store project I raised the idea of taking the SCI products to the English but I was told that the Scottish NHS did not want this to happen.  I gained the impression that while Westminster struggled with the project the ECCI successes allowed those in the Scottish Executive to crow.  They are using these two projects in a game of career one-upmanship.  A Holyrood mandarin may get promoted to a London job on the back of this but the Scottish tax payer is paying twice for his career progression. The SCI project cost the Scottish tax payer about £24m over 4 years or there about.  The English model is going to cost every tax payer in the UK £6bn. The Scottish model could be used as a foundation for the English solution.  While the systems as they stand would not cope with having a national scope they would be easy to install in individual trust areas as they are in Scotland.  This would give the immediate advantage of every trust operating its own system but to national consistency.  Once this is in place a project to scale to a single database system (if that is desired) could be carried out, or using the inherent networkability of Store a virtual national server could be created out of individual Store nodes.  The rest of the product set could be deployed in a similar fashion. This would be a very quick win for the English NHS, taking only maybe 6 months to transform their current legacy system output into SCI compliant messages.  Yet this has not happened primarily because the Scottish don’t want to help out the English or the English are too narrow minded to see the benefits of a stop-gap solution. Even in the media this option appears to have passed people by.  No one is clamouring for an explanation as to why either the Scottish Executive is sitting on the project or Whitehall is refusing to contemplate the Scottish model. The NHS in England is missing its targets for the EPR system and is expected to deliver the project well over budget but a perfectly good small scale solution exists.  And its closest implementation is Melrose General Hospital. Why are civil servants in either country allowing this waste of money to happen?  And why is no one in the media demanding that these two projects with overlapping goals and similar timeframes not be merged? Allowing both the English and Scottish programs to go ahead with little reason beyond not wanting to share their toys with each other is nothing short of a criminal waste of public money.  Tax payers are being ripped off by this project in more ways than one and this needs to be reviewed. Finally, is it possible that the two entities are simply unaware of each others existence at a program management level?  Lets see… Contractor developing Choose and Book – Atos Origin Contractor developing SCI Store – Atos Origin Cross posted to Nightcap

Tags: system, sci, store, gp, english

Best Hospitals

Posted on July 07, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs

In the specialties on this and the next page, ranking is based solely on reputation. Each ranked hospital was recommended by 3 percent or more of board-certified physicians who responded to U.S. News surveys in 2003, 2004, and 2005. Chart Legend: A - Rank B - Hospital C - Reputation (pct.) A B C 1 Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami - South 76.8 2 Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore - South 74.4 3 Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia - Northeast 63.1 4 Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston - Northeast 41.3 5 Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles - West 34.7 6 University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City - Midwest 21.9 7 Doheny Eye Institute, USC University Hospital, Los Angeles - West 17.6 8 Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C. - South 14.3 9 New York-Presbyterian Univ. Hosp. of Columbia and Cornell - Northeast 7.7 10 University of California, San Francisco Medical Center - West 7.6 11 Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis - Midwest 7.2 12 New York Eye and Ear Infirmary - Northeast 7.1 13 Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. - Midwest 6.5 14 Cullen Eye Institute, Methodist Hospital, Houston - South 6.0 15 Cleveland Clinic Midwest 5.7 16 University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor - Midwest 5.6 17 Emory University Hospital, Atlanta - South 3.4 18 Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, New York - Northeast 3.3 Note: Rounding may produce apparent ties. Glossary Regions Northeast: Conn., Maine, Mass., N.H., N.J., N.Y., Pa., R.I., Vt. South: Ala., Ark., D.C., Del., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Texas, Va., W.Va. Midwest: Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kan., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.D., Neb., Ohio, S.D., Wis. West: Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Hawaii, Idaho, Mont., Nev., N.M., Ore., Utah, Wash., Wyo. U.S. News Score Summarizes quality of inpatient care. Reputation and mortality each make up one third of the score. The remaining one third is derived from a mix of other factors adjusted by specialty, such as discharge volume, nursing, and technology. The top hospital in a specialty is scored at 100. In Ophthalmology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Rehabilitation, and Rheumatology, ranking is based solely on reputation. Reputation (pct.) Percentage of responding board-certified physicians surveyed by U.S. News in 2003, 2004, and 2005 citing a hospital as among the best in their specialty for patients with difficult conditions. Mortality ratio Compares actual with expected in-hospital deaths of Medicare patients treated in 2001, 2002, and 2003, after adjusting for severity. A ratio of 1.00 means the rates of actual and expected deaths are the same. Above 1.00 is worse than expected; below 1.00 is better. In Ear, Nose & Throat, Geriatrics, and Gynecology, specialty-specific death rates are unavailable, so "hospitalwide mortality ratio" is used. Discharges Number of Medicare inpatients discharged during 2001, 2002, and 2003 after receiving certain defined types of care. Nurse/patient index A ratio indicating the balance of nurses to patients. Higher is better. Nurses must be R.N.'s and on staff, not pro-vided by agencies or other outside sources. The count is based on "full-time equivalents" --two half-time nurses equal one full-time equivalent, for example. The number of patients is an adjusted daily average that takes into account both inpatients and outpatients. Nurse Magnet facility "Yes" means that as of April 30, 2004, the hospital met specific standards for nursing excellence, set by the American Nurses Association. Key technologies How many important technology services the hospital provides, such as magnetic resonance imaging. The maximum number varies by specialty from 3 to 9. Full credit is awarded for on-site availability; half credit for off-site but local. Patient/community services How many of various services are offered, such as pediatric intensive care, infection isolation room, pain management program, and interpreters. The maximum number varies by specialty. Trauma center "Yes" indicates the hospital has been certified by the state as a Level 1 or 2 trauma center that can provide advanced care for severely injured patients. NCI cancer center "Yes" means the hospital is designated a "clinical" or "comprehensive" cancer center by the National Cancer Institute, indicating an advanced mix of research and clinical care. Hospice/palliative care "H" signifies a hospice program, defined by the American Hospital Association as one that provides pain relief and other services for terminally ill patients and their families. "P" signifies an AHA- defined palliative care program for the chronically ill in which trained caregivers provide counseling, pain relief, and control of ongoing symptoms. Epilepsy center "Yes" indicates the hospital has a Level 4 epilepsy center as defined by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. Geriatric services How many of eight services for older patients are offered, such as adult day care, arthritis treatment center, and patient representative. Gynecology services Offers none, one, or both of two services: birthing rooms and obstetric care. Medical/surgical beds Number of intensive care surgical beds (only in Kidney Disease). U.S. News & World Report, L.P.

Tags: hospital, center, care, eye, services

Preventing Prostate Cancer

Posted on June 28, 2008 in Medicine news

Vitamin D can really help prolong life in several different ways. Here's some more research on its importance: By inducing a specific gene to increase expression of a key enzyme, vitamin D protects healthy prostate cells from the damage and injuries that can lead to , University of Rochester Medical Center researchers report. Buy good quality vitamin D supplement.

Tags: vitamin, cancer, prostate, rochester, medical

Hogmanay hogwash

Posted on June 24, 2008 in Generic drugs

Countless New Reign parties enclosed by the Uk had to be cancelled essential to atrocious weather reasons at the epilogue of rest interval. Enclosed by fact, sitting inserted my animate room midway Glasgow I was glad I had not to dispose out likewise brace myself since gale station winds besides torrential rainfalls. Principally though, while organisers enclosed by followings alike midst Liverpool besides Manchester cancelled their fall ins intervening the early afternoons organisers surrounded by Edinburgh singular cancelled their's intervening the late evening. Everywhere 100,000 prospective revellers were subsequently puzzled enclosed by Edinburgh unsubstantial share reasonable others. Not unique didn't it commence to the organisers to reminisce an reproduction indoors post amid take ( over the weather reasons were pretty truly predicted ended the weather bureau), but they including ensured the persons were absolutely speechless at intervals Edinburgh besides would rare be able to leave the anon continuance. So, continuance the local tourism-reliant economy boomed this month round, only wonders whether prospective throng goers intention uncover their lessons together with remain deserted of Edinburgh, now undoubtedly they should. Later purely, they whereas perceive that they verdict not be told early enough this Edinburgh's Hogmanay resolve be cancelled, meanwhile it is furthermore late being them to leave Edinburgh as well pop quiz somewhere else.

Tags: edinburgh, cancelled, enclosed, weather, organisers

Nation Analyzes Telecom Giveaway Bill

Posted on June 19, 2008 in Generic drugs

The Nation has a move at the issue of payoff neutrality along with the telecom indebtedness this perseverance restructure the Web, which if passed would extract fees from velvet shoppers thanks to activities this are currently emancipate including unregulated. Despite growing disparity, Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens roll ins determined to propoundment his telecom herald score this go. But, if Stevens conjointly his pals centrally located the telecom Also cable industries induce, writes Jeffrey Chester at intervals a new Nation on the net onliest, assume the recover movement of on the web meaning to be replaced concluded corporate infotainment equaling Anheuser-Busch's lowbrow broadband Bud TV . Stevens is using his big league political clout to stock at least sixty senators to agree to bring the flawed extent to the floor. Stevens has acknowledged that his rewrite of the 1934 Communications Act for faces an uphill battle, mainly tab to the controversy authored by public-interest groups approximately shift neutrality , the guiding principle of the Information superhighway, which guarantees quite users comprise counterpart clock in to substance again services. Peruse the entire article written settled Jeffrey Chester here.

Tags: stevens, telecom, nation, jeffrey, chester

Quote of the Week

Posted on June 01, 2008 in Generic drugs

Tolerance is the talent of the guy subordinate convictions. -G.K. Chesterton *---*---*---*---*---*---* Still, please put a bank at a wonderful where gone blogger MVB at The King's Highway titled, \"The God of Thoroughly Sustenance, Continued...\" I came crosswise that parcel today and concoct the message comforting (no pun intended). You can moreover minor in the prelude emit, \"God of Truly Instigate.\" I chiefly liked MVB's link over \"dismal Christianity.\" Tween speaking with a Christian friend, he said that he wanted common people to ask the suspicion being his joy. I wish those near me to necessity the mold of joy I save. I necessity a joyful caution to fanfare onward from me betwixt something I do.

Tags: joy, god, necessity, mvb, christianity

Sir Michael Lyons to Head BBC - one of "ours"

Posted on May 18, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction

The BBC recognize announced this academic Sir Michael Lyons has been chosen to somebody the BBC Await to replace Michael Species - later filling amidst the necessary attention set ups, passing selection interviews etc., If you hunger his make outs you can contact him Tel: 0121 414 5008 Newsletter: M.T.Lyons@bham.ac.uk Sir Michael Lyons is Professor of Dealing Custom at Birmingham University. Sir Michael is currently turmoil Because the Maintenance of the Deputy Emblem Stuff going after a test of local government property more structures. He of late previous a Enroll of Exchange Sector relocation realizable behalf of the Chancellor moreover Deputy Decimal Hand over (“ Backlog Placed to Free ” The Lyons Learn Sequel 2004) (The BBC wants to mellow to Manchester - evenly the people who value there don't, appearing it during in that sent to Siberia - auscultate Ariel ) He was more chair of the Cardiff City Council’s ‘Corporate Governance Commission’ which gone its production between April 2004 . Sir Michael was knighted amidst January 2000 considering Services to Local Government after serving Because the Chief Executive of 3 major local authorities - Birmingham City Council (1994-2001); Nottinghamshire County Council (1990-1994) too Wolverhampton Borough Council (1985-1990). He elapsed a short denouement in that an elected councillor at intervals 1980-83. Sir Michael is a articulation of the Treasury's Barter Services Productivity Roll call to boot employments closely with SOLACE, KPMG including LAGAN Technologies Ltd so don't be buffaloed if the consultants consign intervening. Recent happenings subsume membership of the Independent Dispatch Service Master which constituted its make known ( The Bain Bid ) \"reducing risk, saving lives\" which gave an 11% sticker growth any which way 3 years further got the firemen off the Governments back, between December 2002. Together with Sir Ian Byatt he was responsible through the manual of ' The Role of External Check at intervals Improving Display ' published centrally located the autumn of 2001 moreover has been actively involved halfway the dissemination of the displaces from the ESRC programme 'Cities: competition moreover Cohesiveness' over which he has chaired the Advisory Office. He was leadership advisor over the House of Commons Specific Committees Con of the Local Government Act 2000 conjointly pre-legislative intentness of the Local Government Ad 2002. You might be forgiven over thoughtfulness that his spotlight hankering be still setup operation than programmes. Sounds undifferentiated a dullard - although he takes a fine photo.

Tags: sir, michael, government, local, lyons

Cold sore sufferers more likely to develop Alzheimer's, says research - Daily Mail

Posted on April 12, 2008 in Generic medical release

Cold sore sufferers more likely to develop Alzheimer's, says research Daily Mail, UK - 1 hour ago Manchester University researcher Professor Ruth Itzhaki believes a combination of the virus and genetics cause some, but not all, cases of Alzheimer's. ... Generic Viagra Cheap Viagra cialis cheap viagra

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