IT & TELECOMS
This is just the beginning T
Although the use of information technology in clinical procedures has revolutionised the quality of patient care, its application on the administrative side of the health service still leaves a lot to be desired, reports Richard Mackillican
Matthew Swindell, Chair of BCS Health
he use of computers in the NHS has dramatically changed the way in which care
is delivered to patients, with many people alive today owing their survival to the technology which has evolved over the years. There is still much more work to be done, however, to bring the administrative side of healthcare IT up to the same standards.
“This use of ICT in the
technology used to treat patients - such as the technology which used to drive MR scanners or to support intensive care units - has been both phenomenal and transformational,” says Matthew Swindells, chair of BCS Health at BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, and former NHS CIO, now MD for Health at Tribal Group.
“The administrative use of ICT and its use in day to day hospital care has been more disappointing. Primary care has shown the potential, with many GP surgeries now paperless as are some of the new independent treatment centres, but our hospital institution have been largely immune to such change.”
the fact that we
have a national secure email system is a great step forward as is the implementation of the patient identification system
66 nhe
Although the debate around the implementation of the national patient records system has tended to dominate the perception of the NHS’s administrative use of ICT, Matthew also recognises that the last ten years have yielded many advancements in the administrative use of ICT in healthcare, with some delivering obvious benefits whilst some advances have developed into a
double edged sword.
“If you consider the use of data by the NHS, on the one hand we now have the ability to use data to track the performance of NHS trusts with regards to things like mortality rates and this has enabled the public to hold the NHS to account far more effectively than ever before. Perversely though, this has probably led to a reduction in public confidence in the health service, whilst simultaneously driving the quality of care up.
“Other administrative advances include computerisation of primary and community care and the implementation of PACS, the picture archiving and communications system, which now enables clinicians in many different sites to view the same image simultaneously.
“There have also been some great steps taken by the National Programme for IT with standardisation. Whether what has been achieved here is representative of the time and expense which has been put into the programme is another question, but undoubtedly the fact that we have a national secure email system is a great step forward, as is the implementation of the patient identification system. Both are absolutely crucial infrastructure for a fully integrated ICT driven NHS.”
These advances have been made over the last twenty years and the speed at which technology advances is increasing. So what
does Matthew think the next ten years hold for ICT in healthcare?
“I think that the next decade will see the use of ICT to identify and target patients, so that we can intervene earlier in their disease or risk profile, in order to keep them healthy, as opposed to reacting to when they fall ill.
“Another use of ICT will be to allow the care setting to be appropriate to the patient rather than the care setting being determined by where the data is.
“For example, at the moment, patients will come into a GP’s surgery or a hospital, largely because that is where the doctor has their patient records which they need to have at hand in order to give a diagnosis. In the future, ICT will allow us to redesign care pathways to allow patient records to follow the patient rather than it being the other way around.”
Although this would enable care to be delivered in a more convenient way for patients, Matthew acknowledges that safeguards must be in place to ensure the quality of data and therefore the safety of patients.
“If you start to do what the previous administration has done, which is break up the patient pathways with a number of different providers, then you really do need to ensure that clinical information can more seamlessly around the patient. Otherwise you will have patients being treated in convenient settings, but in an unsafe way,
Jul/Aug 10
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