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             Please click on the logos above of the UKeHA's Premier Members  |
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| News in Brief | UKeHA Update | ||||||
| Forthcoming UK Events: 16-17 October 2003 eHealth 2003: Implementing Technology in Healthcare: Third Annual Conference and Exhibition, London. For further information, visit www.eHealth2003.org. 23 October 2003 eWorld Government & Healthcare London. For further details please visit http://www.egovmonitor.com /et?0904 30 October 2003 Royal Society of Medicine Telemedicine and eHealth Forum - What the ICRS has to offer the Modernisation of Health Care: Why Clinicians should engage now? London. For further information visit www.rsm.ac.uk/telemedicine. 12-13 November 2003 WAVE – The Web, Audio and Video Collaboration Event, London. For further information visit www.wave-conferencing.com. 16-17 March 2004 HEAT 2004: The Home and Electronic Assistive Technology, King’s Manor, University of York. For further information visit http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~am1/ HEAT.html. Alternatively, contact Guy Dewsbury at g.dewsbury@lancaster.ac.uk or Gordon Baxter at g.Baxter@psych.york.ac.uk. 22-24 March 2004 HC2004, Healthcare Computing: Delivering Health Informatics at the Point of Care, Harrogate. Submit your papers by 13 October. For further information, visit www.health-informatics.org.  |
The UKeHA’s AGM Event Update
The AGM took place on 23 September 2003 at the Institute of Child Health, London. The Board members who were re-elected are: • Dr Ricky Richardson • Richard Taylor • Alasdair Liddell • Mike McCurry Anne Casey FRCN, has been nominated by the Royal College of Nursing and accepted as a Board member. Additional Board members are being sought and nominations are invited from the membership and should be sent to the Company Secretary at Ronaldsons, 55 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HQ. Dr Ricky Richardson announced his intention to stand down as Chair of the UKeHA in January 2004. Benefits of eHealth brought home The Home Healthcare SIG met in July to define the priorities and goals of the group, and to consider a potential half day meeting towards the end of the year with the purpose of informing senior Governmental, Health Authority and Trust members about the benefits that eHealth solutions offer home healthcare. The Group also discussed key messages it wants to convey via a targeted PR campaign. At the beginning of September, Adrian Flowerday, managing director of Docobo and Chair of the Group, gave a presentation on behalf of the SIG entitled “eHealth in the Home” to the nursing community at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in London during a half day conference on “The Impact of eHealth on Nurses”. Dr Ricky Richardson, Chairman of the UKeHA, set the scene and the key note speech was made by Dr Beverly Malone, General Secretary of the RCN. Encouragingly, Dr Malone stated her judgement that the future of nursing “must” include a significant element of eHealth assistance. Other presentations were given by Bernice Baker and Maria Bryson of the RCN eHealth Group, and by Dr Nicholas Robinson and Sarah Perry of NHS Direct. Representatives of the nursing community present at the meeting expressed strong interest in eHealth. Anyone who is interested in getting involved in the group can contact Adrian Flowerday at adrian.flowerday@docobo.co.uk or phone 01372 363747 for further information. |
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| News in Brief | Members News | ||||||
Award for NHS Direct Online NHS Direct Online is to be congratulated for winning an award at the first ever e-Europe Awards for e-Health, organised by the European Commission. The awards, held in Brussels and attended by European Commissioners and 33 Ministers from across the member states, attracted 200 entries from 23 countries. NHS Direct Online was recognised for “Empowering Citizens in Management of Health and Wellbeing”. The panel judged entries against criteria including economic benefit, accessibility, quality assurance, technical standards and European applicability. For further information, visit www.e-europeawards.org Telecare solution for sheltered housing Telecare specialist Tunstall has launched a new solution to allow the monitoring of people living in supported housing communities. Telecare Overlay uses radio telecare sensors to monitor wandering and bed occupancy as well as potential hazards such as smoke, floods and gas. It also provides an effective security solution to protect the individual and their belongings whilst on the premises. Telecare Overlay can be assigned to up to 500 sensors, which can inform the housing scheme manager or offsite staff at a response centre which sensor has been activated and where it is located. Tony Rice, Tunstall’s CEO says, “Telecare Overlay is designed to make vulnerable residents feel safe and secure in their homes, with a direct link to help and support at any time.” Contact Richard Smith at Tunstall for further information on 01977 661 234 or email: rj_smith@tunstall.co.uk. Forthcoming UK Events 4 December 2003 Advances in Reshaping Pharmacy Services fit for the 21st Century, Birmingham. For further information visit www.bjhc.co.uk or email events@bjhcltd.demon. co.uk. 10 December 2003 Caring for Older People at Home in the 21st Century, Birmingham. For further information visit www.bjhc.co.uk or email events@bjhcltd.demon. co.uk.  |
It’s a number’s game
 The National Information Authority (NHSIA) has announced that half a million babies have now been given an NHS number within moments of birth. The 500,000th number was issued to a baby on Thursday, 21 August 2003, just ten months after the introduction of the NHS Numbers for Babies (NN4B) system in England and Wales by the NHSIA. Previously NHS numbers were issued at civil registration by Registrars of Births and Deaths, up to six weeks after birth. The new NN4B system allows midwives to request a unique NHS number for every baby shortly after they are born.Newborn babies undergo a great many tests and a significant number of babies need extra healthcare, which can be administered across different departments or even hospitals. Joined up healthcare is now available from the word go thanks to the NHS number link. The benefits of this are exemplified by newborn hearing tests. The NHS Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) started in 2001 and over 40 areas of England have already started offering screening tests within a few days of birth. The current standard infant distraction test, which will eventually be replaced by the new procedure, happens when babies are around seven months of age. Now thanks to electronic transfer of information, using the NHS number as the enabler, a Newborn Hearing Screening Health professional, based at each NHS facility, can be notified of a birth almost immediately, ensuring that baby has his or her hearing tested by a new, painless and more effective procedure before they leave hospital. The system also ensures maximum screen coverage, more accurate records and less time spent on data entry, making certain babies with hearing impairments aren’t missed. The newborn hearing test is the first of many that early issue of the NHS number can facilitate. Sickle Cell, Thalassaemia, Phenylketonuria, Congenital Hypothyroidism and Haemoglobinopathy are among the other tests that babies need to undergo as soon as possible and use of the NHS number to link these early tests could make a huge difference to babies that may require follow up care at any number of NHS facilities in the future. For further information, visit www.nhsia.nhs.uk/def/pages/pr/01092003.asp Motion Media to supply deaf community in Norway with videophones  The Norwegian Government has chosen Motion Media to provide free desktop videophones to every young deaf person in Norway, where the qualifying age limit has been extended up to the age of 26. This follows the success of extensive trials of Motion Media’s mm225 videophone, which runs over ISDN lines, by the Norwegian Ministry of Social Affairs, and the positive feedback from a project established by the Norwegian Association for the Deaf, which has seen every deaf child in Norway up to the age of 18 provided with a free trial videophone, for the past year.The Government Department has now announced its decision to make the offer permanent and extend the age limit for the provision of free videophones to 26 years, so that a larger section of the deaf community in Norway can communicate via a video link using sign language. Arild Berstad, project leader at the Norwegian Ministry, said: “Our long term goal is to stimulate the development of sign language amongst young deaf people in Norway. Videotelephony will also provide a communications network for young deaf people who are spread out around the country to ensure they do not become isolated and lonely. Our ultimate aim is to offer the technology to all deaf people in Norway.” For further information: http://www.motion-media.com |
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| News in Brief | NHS IT News | ||||||
| Health Informatics Community Readers of eHealthcheck are recommended to visit The National Electronic Library for Health’s Health Informatics Community, a specialist library in Health Informatics. The website, which can be found at www.informatics.nhs.uk, offers members up to date news on informatics subjects, dedicated pages on the National Programme for IT, information regarding the NHS Information Authority, and polls and surveys. In addition, members of the community can receive fortnightly e-bulletins, participate in discussion forums and establish special on-line interest groups. For further information, visit www.informatics.nhs.uk. The perfect match The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has announced that new technologies such as barcodes, radio frequency tagging and fingerprinting will be tested in a new project to help make sure the right patient gets the right treatment. The project will examine how checks are carried out now in healthcare and in industry, using either technologies or manual checking procedures, where one member of staff checks the work of another. The project will come up with solutions to mismatching, which could be technological and non-technological. International research has identified the problem of mismatching patients with aspects of care which can include confusing one patient with another or mismatching blood samples, pathology samples, medication or infusions. Where mismatching happens in surgery, the patient may have the wrong part of their body operated on. Mismatching is a serious risk to patient safety and although no harm may be done, there may be potential to cause serious injury or death. The work commissioned as part of this project will provide information on the nature and extent of the problem – in the UK and overseas. For further information, visit http://www.npsa.nhs.uk Events 5 November 2003 nhs.uk 3rd National Conference: Patient Choice in the NHS, Aston Villa Football Club Conference Suite, Birmingham. For further information, visit www.nhsia.nhs.uk/def/ pages/events.asp. 25 November 2003 NHS ICT & Informatics Professionals Conference: QE11 Conference Centre, Westminster, London. For further information contact Siobhan.Roberts@nhsia. nhs.uk.  |
NHS IT plans move forward
The National Programme for IT in the NHS has short-listed bidders for a contract to be the National Application Service Provider (NASP) for the Integrated Care Records Service (ICRS), the core national information repository called the NHS Spine. It has also announced bidders for the five Local Service Providers (LSP) contracts. The short-lists were finalised to the planned timetable and all of the successful and unsuccessful bidders have now officially been informed. On 30 June, long-listed ICRS NASP and LSP bidders put their proposals in response to the NPfIT’s Output Business Specification, which describes the requirements for IT Services in the NHS. The short-listed suppliers for the NASP contract, who in virtually every instance are leading a consortium of specialist sub-contractors, are BT, IBM and Lockheed. The short-listed suppliers for the LSP contract are Accenture, BT, Cerner, CGEY, Computer Sciences (CSC), Fujitsu, IBM, Lockheed, Patient First Alliance, PlexusCare and SchlumbergerSema. Final contracts will be awarded later this year. For further information, visit www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/programme/index.htm Short-list announced for N3 project The Department of Health has announced that The National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) has short-listed bidders for the New National Network (N3) contract. The short-listed suppliers are BT, Cable & Wireless and EDS. These organisations were short-listed from a total of eight bidders who had previously been issued a preliminary invitation to negotiate. Short-listed bidders are competing for the N3 contract to provide and manage networking services for the NHS. The N3 supplier will ensure continuity of service as the existing NHSnet contracts come to an end and will provide connectivity and bandwidth to support current and future NHS requirements. N3 services will be available at every site where NHS services are delivered or managed. Within the National Programme the N3 project forms part of the Infrastructure work stream which has been set up to provide a comprehensive, underpinning IT infrastructure to support the other projects within the Programme, as well as future developments. The contract will be awarded early in 2004. For further information, visit www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/programme/n3shortlistpressstatement.htm. National Programme Appoints Regional Implementation Directors The National Programme for IT in the NHS has announced the appointment of Regional Implementation Directors (RIDs), for its geographic clusters across England. The role of the RIDs is to work closely with the Strategic Health Authorities and Chief Information Officers in their clusters to support the implementation of the National Programme at a local level. Their first task is to ensure that the early deliverables and patient care benefits from the National Programme and Local Development Plans are achieved. New appointees are Paul Charnley for the North West and West Midlands cluster; Robin Arnold for the Eastern cluster; John Willshere for the Southern cluster; and Martyn Forrest for the North East, York and Humberside cluster. For further information, visit www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/programme/index.htm ICRS OBS2 update The Department of Health has released information regarding Version 2 of the Output Based Specification (OBS2) for the Integrated Care Records Service (ICRS). The development of the OBS is an iterative process, which will continue throughout the lifetime of the ICRS programme. OBS1 was developed and refined with input from clinicians, chief information officers, IT managers, leading clinicians, practitioners, policy advisors, health informaticians and managers and representatives from the Department of Health, NHS Information Authority, NHS organisations, GPs, academic groups, the Royal Colleges and other government departments. Following the publication of OBS1, additional feedback was sought from a wide range of sources including the Department of Health, NHS organisations, the Royal Colleges, individual clinicians and LSP bidders. The OBS was updated to reflect this feedback and also changes in national guidelines and legal requirements, particularly around the information systems required to support national service frameworks and evolving secondary uses of information. The changes were logged through the National Programme’s formal change and control process. OBS2 includes a greater level of detail than OBS1. For further information, visit www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/programme/obs_icrs.htm. |
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| News in Brief | Global Roundup | ||||||
| New eHealth newsletter launched A new monthly information bulletin, eHealth InfoSource cybersanté, has been launched. The bulletin is a free electronic current awareness service alerting readers to new electronic information resources available in eHealth, and is published by the Office of Health and the Information Highway (OHIH), Health Canada. The bulletin is the latest addition to the “eHealth Resource Centre”, sponsored by OHIH. Subscribe to the bulletin by sending an email to eHealth_infosource_ cybersante@hc-sc.gc.ca or visit http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ohih-bsi/menu_e.html African teleHealth symposium during Med-e-Tel 2004 in Luxembourg Africa TeleHealth Group, in close collaboration with its principal partners, Med-e-Tel, EMG Africa and Medoctor Inc, will be holding a satellite symposium concurrently with the Med-e-Tel 2004 International Trade Fair. The theme of the satellite symposium is “The Africa Diaspora, TeleHealth and Telemedicine: A Symposium for Joint Action”. For further information, contact Raymond Micah of the Africa TeleHealth Group at micah1731@rogers.com. US Survey report The Telemedicine Research Centre will sponsor and conduct a 2003 survey report which will be published in early 2004 by the Civil Research Institute in New York. The report will focus on US activity, but a new section of the report will also include a listing of international telemedicine programmes. It will be based on data from the new survey posted on the Telemedicine Information Exchange (TIE). TIE would like organisations involved in telemedicine/teleHealth activities to include data on activities by going to the TIE programmes section and submitting a survey before 15 October, 2003. For more information, contact Nancy Brown at brown@telemed.org or Robert Roberts at Roberts@telemed.org.  |
Ehealth Standardisation
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) along with other standards development organisations recently held a workshop to discuss the standardisation of eHealth. Sessions included case studies highlighting end-user requirements and discussions on technical issues that need to be addressed. Leonid Androuchko of the ITU confirmed that many telemedicine systems have been introduced in several countries but there are communication problems between the systems due to incompatibility of software and, sometimes, hardware. Other speakers at the workshop agreed that standardisation in eHealth would increase levels of interoperability. The conclusion was that a joint co-ordination group would be formed to increase information exchange about ongoing standards activities in the respective organisations, avoid duplication and enhance co-operation. Subsequent to the event, an ITU-T Study Group has agreed to set up an eHealth project, which will look at standardisation of multimedia systems to support telemedicine applications. For further information, visit www.telemedicine.lu Virginia hospitals share information Hospitals in Virginia can share details about emergency room crowding, available patient beds, and unusual clusters of symptoms in patients. Such information has traditionally been communicated by fax and phone calls, methods that can be time-consuming and slow. The information is now being disseminated primarily via an Internet-based communications system that has been up and running since March 2003. Hospitals, emergency dispatchers, health departments, and select others all have access to the real-time system that uses software developed by EMSystem of Milwaukee. Individual facilities sign on to the website, which is password protected, and update information about their hospitals as situations change. Disaster and major emergency alerts are sent across the system with attention grabbing sounds added. The system can send alerts and updates via fax, page, and email. Source: Richmond Times – Dispatch, August 5, 2003, via the Telemedicine Information Exchange What’s New, at http://tie.telemed.org/news/ Keeping IT close to the heart PDSHeart, one of the leading telemedicine cardiac monitoring services in the US, has developed a reliable diagnostic tool which shows arrhythmias or other abnormal heart activity, recorded as patients go about their normal daily activities. The pager-sized device, which is prescribed and applied in a doctor’s office or hospital, enables a patient to record any abnormal experiences, such as palpitations or dizziness. The patient then transmits the information in near real-time to a monitoring clinic where it is read by a certified cardiac technician, and sent to the prescribing physician. Data is transmitted by landline, cell phone or the internet from patients. The digital data received at PDSHeart’s monitoring clinic is immediately converted to a traditional EKG format and displayed on a computer screen to be read by the cardiac technician. Once the EKG is read, a report is prepared and faxed and/or web published within minutes on a secure site for use by the patient’s physician. Visit http://atsp.org/news/supplier.asp?contentID=1422&FullStory=.  New Look for Trade FairThe Telemedicine and Telecare International Trade Fair need no longer be a mouthful as their name has now changed to “Med-e-Tel”. To fit in with the general trend towards the use of the term “eHealth”, the new name Med-e-Tel now encompasses the entire scope of the trade fair in an easily recognisable format. And with a new name, comes a new look – the business-to-business exhibition and conference for telemedicine, eHealth and health informatics, has a new and updated website at www.medetel.lu. The site provides information and registration facilities for exhibitors, visitors, press and speakers of the Med-e-Tel event, which is scheduled to take place from 21-23 April 2004, in Luxemburg. For more details or to sign up, go to www.medetel.lu or contact info@medetel.lu. |
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| News in Brief | Industry Viewpoint | ||||||
| Key worldwide events include: 23 October 2003 eWorld Government & Healthcare, London. For further information, visit http://www.eworld-government.com 12-16 June 2004 All Africa Telemedicine and TeleHealth Conference: Envisioning Health Care and Technology Together, Yaounde, Cameroon. For further information, contact Raymond Micah at micah1731@rogers.com. And Finally Remote Radiology 
Mysterian, a peer-to-peer software company specialising in the healthcare sector, has announced the development of the world’s first “peer-to-peer radiological workspaces” based on the Groove platform. Radiological Workspaces are secure shared Internet spaces where referring physicians, radiographers, radiologists and even patients can jointly view and analyse patient images and records regardless of location. Unlike web-based radiology, radiological workspaces provide rich “Team Radiology” functionality without requiring cumbersome servers and the support of an IT department. The new workspace has already been used by the Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway – a remote hospital based on the Isle of Lewis in the North West of Scotland. The hospital, like so many others, suffers from a shortage of radiologists. During out of hours times, when there is often no consultant radiologist available to provide assistance, patients have to be flown by air ambulance to the nearest largest hospital, at least 150 miles away. The Groove Workspace and Mysterian Radiology Manager allows doctors to transmit patient radiology images to specialists on the mainland. The specialist then reviews the images and reports the diagnosis in real-time, and advises hospital staff accordingly. The shared workspace also provides an archive of patient images. For further information, visit www.mysterian.com.  |
 Adrian Flowerday, Managing Director, Docobo, comments on the increasing need for automated home based health monitoring for chronic diseases.What factors and recent developments highlight a need for automated health monitoring in the UK? The continuing shortage of nurses in the UK, and the ongoing pressure placed on GPs are two issues that have been gaining the headlines lately. Another factor is the growing number of retired people with continually increasing life expectancy. The increase in the relative proportion of the retired population is being accompanied by an increase in the costs associated with the healthcare they require. The most significant component of these costs is care for the chronically ill, both inside hospitals and at home, particularly in the area of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and asthma. The result is that the management of patients in the community suffering from chronic conditions is placing increasing pressure on healthcare providers. The government has even raised the possibility of introducing 'contracts' between GPs and their patients, with an onus on people taking greater responsibility for their own health. Which groups need to be influenced for automated health monitoring to really take off? Services such as Doc@HOME have been designed to alleviate such problems. The service is initially targeted at two of the major chronic illnesses, namely hypertension and diabetes, and for clinical drug trials. Benefits to the healthcare industry include financial and political gains for Primary Care Trusts, reduction of health professional visits, medicine management, increased hospital bed availability, reduced numbers in outpatients clinics, value added services for the private sector and a reduction in costs and time taken to complete drug trials. Awareness therefore needs to be raised with both public and private healthcare providers, along with the pharmaceutical industry. Ultimately though, the consumer could choose to buy the product directly from a pharmacy or over the Internet. Key influencers include organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and the Blood Pressure Association which campaign to raise awareness of the issues surrounding the prevention and management of chronic conditions. What progress has Docobo already made in this field? Numerous clinical trials have proven that continuous monitoring of vital signs is essential to prevent and control chronic disease. The only viable way to do this is by enabling the patient at home to be motivated to monitor themselves. This can be achieved through the provision of suitable technology which motivates and educates. Neither the NHS nor the private healthcare system can provide this level of monitoring. Doc@HOME has been in trials throughout Europe, looking at issues of patient acceptance and usability. Are you confident that Doc@HOME will be accepted by patients?  Yes. Feedback from the trials has been very positive: on the whole patients prefer to be cared for in a home environment, especially when they can be supported by their family and friends. Also, the unit is fit for purpose and very easy to use. Clinicians are seeing benefits, with rapid medication adjustments being achieved and patients becoming more compliant with medication. For more information, visit www.docobo.co.uk |
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The National Information Authority (NHSIA) has announced that half a million babies have now been given an NHS number within moments of birth. The 500,000th number was issued to a baby on Thursday, 21 August 2003, just ten months after the introduction of the NHS Numbers for Babies (NN4B) system in England and Wales by the NHSIA. Previously NHS numbers were issued at civil registration by Registrars of Births and Deaths, up to six weeks after birth. The new NN4B system allows midwives to request a unique NHS number for every baby shortly after they are born. 
Adrian Flowerday, Managing Director, Docobo, comments on the increasing need for automated home based health monitoring for chronic diseases.