HC 2011 part I: Words from the Secretary of State for Health
Written by: Jon Lindberg on 5 April, 2011I’m in Birmingham today, attending the three-day 2011 Health Informatics Congress alongside 1,500 visitors (give or take a few). We had a great session this morning on digital innovation in the NHS. We heard the CIO from the North East SHA and the lead for QIPP Digital and Technology Vision on what is already happening in the NHS and what is to come. A lot of the focus is on communication, information sharing and clinical and patient engagement. It was encouraging to see many in the audience coming from the NHS and expressing an eagerness for using technology to do their job better.
post-lunch wisdom from the SoS Andrew Lansley
Following the political spectacle surrounding the NHS reforms over the weekend where Mr. Lansley “acknowledged there are ‘genuine concerns’ about the NHS shake-up in England” we were given reassurance that no matter what, the NHS needs an Information Revolution….
The NHS is lagging behind the digital age and need to catch up fast. We can’t afford not to have an Information Revolution. Clinicians and other front line staff need to be imaginative with using information and data to improve services. Patients are already demanding greater access and control via digital communication tools. If we move 1% of face-to-face interactions to digital means we can save £250million that we can use for better use in the front line to improve care. These are few of the areas Mr. Lansley touched upon.
In terms of technology Mr. Lansley wants to see the mainstreaming of telehealth, mobile solutions, and patient facing solutions. However these must all be driven by clinical leadership centered on theirs and patients’ needs. The IT industry will need focus more on the outcomes needed by the front-line and ‘consumers’ in a plural, competitive market; Mr Lansely said we need to “create an open IT market for any technology provider who can contribute to delivering better care for patients”.
Read part II of the blog here
Tags: ehalth, HC 2011, health IT
5 April, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Glad to see Telehealth getting a menion at last. Why is there so little on the web about it?
Having heard about the success in Milton Keynes where a patient no longer has to visit the hospital unless his self-adminsistered automated daily checkup sends a warning to the doctor I can see huge advantages. Why isn’t this extended across the whole of England?
What about having better ambulance to hospital communication too?
5 April, 2011 at 10:20 pm
On telehealth
There are around 1.6-1.7m telecare and 6000 telehealth installations currently in England. The outcomes from the World’s largest randomised controlled trial of TC and TH will be published this year.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have telecare and telehealth initiatives.
The King’s Fund recently organised a three international congress which was streamed around the world – video and presentations at:
http://www.kingsfund.tv/telehealth/
More information, features, evidence database, PCT maps etc are available at The King’s Fund web site:
http://www.wsdactionnetwork.org.uk
The Technology Strategy Board have just announced the DALLAS Project:
http://www.innovateuk.org/content/news/18-million-programme-will-grow-market-for-independ.ashx
For telestroke, see recent conference with presentations:
http://www.improvement.nhs.uk/stroke/Presentations/Telemedicineevent08Feb11/tabid/253/Default.aspx
Mike Clark
WSD Actin Network
Twitter @clarkmike
Hashtags: #kftelehealth, #telehealth, #telecare
6 April, 2011 at 9:10 am
[...] 04/05/2011: HC 2011 part I: Words from the Secretary of State for Health [...]
6 April, 2011 at 10:50 am
Hi Robert
Many thanks for the comment. Telehealth has long been in the background, slowly picking up pace. I think over the last couple of months it has picked up pace and has received special attention from the top. Just earlier in the month, following the King’s Fund Conference, our very own paper and that from think tank 2020health late last year, Andrew Lansley came out and called for telehealth to be a centre piece to help meet the increased demand of LTCs. And in the budget two weeks ago the growth strategy spelled out specific actions for telehealth to be mainstreamed.
we will of course work hard to get our poitns across and help shape the work undertaken. please get in touch if there’s anything i can do for you.
Regards
Jon
jon.lindberg@intellectuk.org
6 April, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Jon
Embracing new technology, especially efficient mobile applications, that are designed with clinical input to help manage patient care faster and more efficiently, is one way that the NHS can adapt itself to the challenges facing it in the near future. Providing the solutions fit real needs, rather than just nice to have technology, not only can medical teams be empowered to be more efficient but patient care can also be improved and potentially costs reduced.
Regards Tim
8 April, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I attended both Andrew Lansley’s and Christine Connelly’s sessions and look forward to hearing more about an information strategy to underpin the commissioning of actual services and probably hold service providers to account. With the relatively recent criticism of data quality within NHS and comments about lack of coding integrity, this could become a critical area with purists looking for intellectual rigour and pragmatists looking for simplicity – and adoption.
It strikes me that similar conflicts occur across IT and, especially in web services with some passionately believing in the Semantic Web despite the metadata preparation overheads restricting its adoption to very small areas of the web while others – from Amazon and FaceBook to Autonomy – develop looser approaches that are so much more widely adopted with technology advances taking the strain.
Let’s hope similar pragmatism prevails.
8 April, 2011 at 8:41 pm
So if pragmatism is to prevail in the NHS Frank, how do we convince the NHS to adpot this approach? Some say that it would be dangerous to go down this path.
We know the health profession wants, rightly so, evidence to back up new systems or ways of working. With health IT evidence is not always there, but can we afford to wait for the evidence looking at both the pressures facing the NHS and the gains generated in other industries who have exploited technology? I’m interested in your thoughts.
Jon