Neil Finlayson: Healthcare

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 12:42:28 GMT

Marc on Cluetrain

Cluetrain Manifesto and Pursuing Perfection in Healthcare?. The Cluetrain Manifesto has something to do with Transparency and with Patient-centered and more. I had never seen it until tonight. It is definitely not business as usual. [Marc's Weblog]

Fri, 21 Feb 2003 17:30:10 GMT

One and a half

GP income could rise by 50%. Society: Family doctors' earnings could rise by up to 50% under radical reform of their working practices. [Guardian Unlimited]

Fri, 21 Feb 2003 17:26:46 GMT

Couldn't agree more ...

A Community Will Create the Major Innovation in Health Care. Both Senator Murry and Representative McDermott have been saying to their staff for years that the major innovation in healthcare will come from some community rather than from the government alone. I believe that Whatcom County is that community, along with the other communities that move in the direction patients are leading us. [Marc's Weblog]

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:49:42 GMT

"Computers have been used in general practice since the early seventies and now virtually all General Practitioners in Scotland have access to a computer. Also, the development and licensing of a Scottish GP system, GPASS, has provided a degree of consistency with over 80% of General Practices using this system. "

Here's a link to GPASS.

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:45:34 GMT

Electronic Patient Records and Electronic Health Records

2.1 An Electronic Patient Record (EPR) describes an organisation’s record of care of an individual patient. The EPR may be episodic in nature, for example in acute hospital care, or may reflect long term care in hospital or in primary care

2.2 The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a longitudinal record of care and relevant health issues about an individual. The EHR will be accessible, appropriately, to a range of healthcare professionals caring for an individual patient, and will contain summarised information on important health events throughout a patient’s life. The EHR will also indicate where more detailed clinical information about that patient is stored within EPRs held by individual healthcare organisations.

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:43:25 GMT

Web Services in the NHS

Stuff happening.

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:36:55 GMT

http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/imt/programmes/programme7.htm

Key targets for UPI/ CHI are:

T7.1 To develop the existing CHI Unique Patient Index towards a system to be known as SCI Index which will reflect the vision set out above. Targets to be set when options for development identified and business case developed.

T7.2 To synchronise all principal master patient indices (MPI) used by primary care,
secondary care and national systems. This is to be achieved by ensuring all MPIs carry the CHI number and that these are electronically generated from the main CHI as the source index. Manual entry of CHI numbers is not regarded as satisfactory because of the risk of keying errors.

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:14:12 GMT

Ecosystem Groove Projects We May Or May Not Ever Get Round To ...

Here ecosystem would mean ... opensource ...

One that I think would be fun. And useful. And an application of grid computing slightly more meaningful than SETI ... at least so far. Sorry I love SETI, what am I saying! Forrest will kill me this was one of our good ideas, at least ostensibly. But we have too much else to do, to fully deliver a great implementation. So lets Groove it together ...

Groove Infectious Diseases Tool

Ever heard of the ICD-10 codes? That's shorthand for the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, tenth revision. Or as was, the International List of Causes of Death.

Now picture doctors a-Groovin around the world, and filing these ICD-10 codes. At the moment they don't do a terribly good job as far as we can tell - because its laborious, and there's not a huge incentive. In particular, there's very little in the way of useful information coming back. But with Groove ... with decent visualization tools such as those from http://www.steema.com/ ... with location-based information. Well you could build the more or less real-time worldwide medical weather forecast. Flu coming at ya, better get those jabs. Or moving away, hold that investment.

Is that a good thing? Lemme think about it.

The argument against I guess is that it would only heighten our hysteria, our hypochondria ...

The argument for is that (a) generally speaking knowledge is good and (b) we could apply medical intervention on a rapid and rational basis and (c) observe disease patterns we had never before seen.

So far I'm for. I'll dig out some code some time soon. Get it going. Check it in to SourceForge. But only if you're interested!

If this project is really stoopid, then hell lets hear a better idea...

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:03:23 GMT

http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/imt/programmes/programme1.htm

Key targets for EPR/ EHR are (see other relevant programmes also):

T1.1 Develop and consult on a specific policy for personal electronic records in the form of EHR by October 2001, with options for patient involvement, access and control.

T1.2 Establish with active co-operation of patients first versions of electronic health records based on GP summary information. First pilots to be in place 2003. Must be accessible by patients.

T1.3 Ensure that by end 2003 all Trusts to implement a common Electronic Patient Record repository based on SCI Store and incorporate within their unified strategies piloting of Electronic Health Records by end 2003.

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:01:59 GMT

Test post to Healthcare