April 2001
INTRODUCTION
It is encouraging to see the continued increase in membership
from both the industry and user sides of the market. This trend over the last
few weeks enables us to report that membership now stands at well over 100.
Many activities to support our members and their views have been initiated,
with two notable events taking place this month.
Firstly the UKTA partnered NHS Direct in their Telemedicine
conference in Leeds. Attended by the various NHS Direct senior management,
clinical leads and UKTA members, the event successfully raised awareness of
telemedicine within this important and influential user group. Following on
this success, the UKTA and NHS Direct have agreed to jointly arrange another
event in October providing the opportunity for a broader range of presentations
from our members. More details will be circulated in the near future.
On the 26th April the UKTA has the opportunity to present the
general concepts and benefits of Telemedicine and Telecare to the House of
Commons Select Committee on Health. This is a great opportunity to raise their
understanding and influence the thinking of parliament on this subject. Of
course general concerns and issues will also be expressed as appropriate.
We will be reporting back to members in due course.
We continue to strive to strike up relationships with central bodies and influential
groups to further the understanding and adoption of technology in Health and
Social care. It is important that our efforts and resulting relationships
benefit all members in some way. If you feel we should be courting any particular
group or can assist in appropriate introductions please let us know.
David Greenaway, Chief Executive
david.greenaway1@btinternet.com
Tel:0771 878 1191
NEW MEMBERS
The UK eHealth Association would like to welcome the following
new members:
• Birmingham Health Authority
• Herefordshire Health Authority
• Sandwell Healthcare NHS Trust
• Patientline
• Telemedic Systems
MEMBERS MEETINGS
Below is advance notice of planned 2001 members meetings. The
programme and directions to the venue will be circulated prior to each event
6 July , Ortivus Southampton
28 September , Adastral Park, BT Innovation Centre Martlesham,
Suffolk
7 November , Joint hosted meeting: Motion Media / Avon HA Bristol
MEMBERS’ NEWS
BT Health is to link up with top suppliers to provide a "one-stop
shop" for NHS organisations seeking to launch mobile technology solutions.
The alliance of BT experts, suppliers and leading organisations from the NHS
- to be called the BT Health Mobile Forum will develop new products to help
the wider health service exploit the rapid advances in mobile communications
www.bt.com
The UK Medical Devices Agency (MDA) has issued a safety notice
on the compatibility of medical devices with mobile communications: TETRA
(Terrestrial Trunked Radio System) and outside media broadcasts from hospital
premises. The MDA says TETRA system handsets are in the same risk category
as GSM phones and that the main risk from media outside broadcast units comes
from two-way radios used by broadcast staff.
http://www.medical-devices.gov.uk
UK NEWS UPDATE
A fact-finding market review that will help primary care organisations
decide which clinical IT system is right for them is being undertaken by the
NHS Information Authority, as part of its Project Connect Programme. Results
from the review will be used to help primary care consumers manage the changes
associated with the introduction of Electronic Health Records and the move
to Primary Care Trust status. They will also help to inform the strategy on
supporting primary care information requirements www.nhsia.nhs.uk
NHS Information Authority has announced that electronic transfers of encrypted pathology tests are to begin in June. Fourteen, first-wave health communities will implement pathology messaging across NHSnet, providing GPs with information to aid diagnosis and improve patient care. All 200 pathology laboratories are due to be connected by December 2002. This should provide more than 9,000 GP practices in England and Wales with online pathology data. http://www.medexonline.com/news/item.cfm?ID=804&source=Medexonline
The NHS Strategic Tracing Service (NSTS), which enables NHS
organisations to find out the NHS number and administrative details of their
patients, has been launched online. NSTS is a national database with over
60m records covering all patients registered with family doctors. www.nhsia.nhs.uk/nsts
UK doctors, nurses and other health professionals can now access
health information held on the National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH)
from home as well as at work. The new home access service gives authorised
health professionals access to the NeLH from any computer connected to the
Internet or NHSnet by just logging on with a simple password. www.nelh.nhs.uk
David Fillingham has been appointed as Director of the NHS Modernisation
Agency. The Agency, which was announced in last July's NHS Plan, formally
began work this week, and will be central to the NHS modernisation project.
The agency will build on the work of the National Patient Access Team, Primary
Care Development Team and the Clinical Governance Support Team. Mr Fillingham
is currently chief executive of North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust. Source:
Medexonline, 4 April 2001
The British Medical Association (BMA) is distributing a brief working guide to gaining valid patient consent, to all hospital doctors and clinical and medical directors. The guide contains a clear definition of how much information a patient should be given in order for his/her consent to be legitimate. Consent to participation in research projects and the teaching of medical students: assessment of the competence to consent; and determining ‘best interests’ are also covered. www.bma.org.uk
OVERSEAS NEWS
One day cellphone signals will monitor the state of your health.
A bomb has reduced a shopping mall to rubble, leaving rescue workers desperate
to know if anyone inside is still alive. Thanks to a remarkable discovery
at Bell Labs in New Jersey, they could one day find out simply by calling
the cellphone of someone lying unconscious inside. That's because the signal
from your cellphone reveals two of your vital signs: your pulse and breathing
rate. The Bell Laboratory engineers noticed that some of the microwaves transmitted
by a cellphone's antenna bounce back to the phone from the chest, heart and
lungs of the person using it. www.newscientist.com/tech/heart.jsp
The first on-the-move telemedicine program is now used to evaluate stroke
patients in a moving ambulance on the way to the hospital.
The University of Maryland Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore are the first to use sophisticated video and computer technology to assess a stroke patient in real time during an ambulance ride. http://www.federaltelemedicine.com/n032201.htm
Along with stethoscopes and reflex hammers, handheld devices
are quickly becoming ubiquitous tools-of-the-trade in the medical profession.
Now, incoming medical students at the Stanford University School of Medicine
will be given handheld patient-management tools on their very first day of
clinical training. Ninety students will be the first recipients of the application,
which will enable the students to record clinical notes and other patient
data, research information on patients' diagnoses and communicate with instructors
and fellow students. news@ihealthcareweekly.com
A report prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality by the Oregon Health Sciences University identifies health care services
that could be provided using telemedicine. The report developed by the Evidence-based
Practice Center (EPC) identifies programs in 3 study areas of telemedicine
including store-and-forward, self-monitoring/testing, and clinician interactive
services http://www.federaltelemedicine.com/n041801.htm
Talking prescription labels, which use computer chip technology are currently being studied at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center and the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Chicago. The computer chip uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to transmit messages to a small box that scans the labels and then pronounces all the information on the label so that the patient can hear the instructions on the label.
PUBLICATIONS
E-Health, Telemedicine, and TeleHealth:A Practical Guide to
Startup & Success by Marlene Maheu, Pamela Whitten, and Ace Allen
http://www.teleHealth.net/shop/index.cgi?product=book
The International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management integrates business, engineering and medicine as well as healthcare, economics and management. It aims to establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge between policy makers, professionals and providers working in healthcare and related industries. http://nt3850.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/ejournal/h/ijhctm/ijhctm/html
USEFUL & INTERESTING SITES
Imagine standing in Sydney and touching someone in New York.
Another kind of virtual reality? Videoconferencing? No, this is tele-immersion.It's
the real-world answer to Star Trek's holodeck and it promises to allow people
in different parts of the world "to submerge themselves in one another's
presence and feel as if they are sharing the same physical space" http://www.newscientist.com/tech/beingthere.jsp
Doctorsworld.com http://www.doctorsworld.com/,
the UK-based portal for doctors is to create an online community for all the
personal and professional needs in every doctor's life
Medical advice from both a website and a WAP site based around
three services: DoctorQ, which outlines questions that patients should ask
their doctor in specific situations; Health-E-Ref, a medical encyclopaedia;
and Symptom Analyser, which is self explanatory. www.pocketdoctor.co.uk
and wap.pocketdoctor.co.uk
NMAP is a gateway to evaluated, quality Internet resources in
Nursing, Midwifery and Allied health Professions, aimed at students, researchers,
academics and practitioners. A search on teleHealth will reveal the facility
to subscribe to the International Tele Nurses Association http://nmap.ac.uk/
The Edinburgh Healthcare Telematics Centre. (EHTC) is one of
the leading centres in the UK for Research and Development in the field of
Telemedicine www.telemedicine.ed.ac.uk
An ethnographic study of the diffusion process of telemedicine
in Scotland http://www.gla.ac.uk/Project/Telemedicine/
A group of young Londoners are using a website to imagine what
the capital would look like if it was a healthy city.www.imaginelondon.co.uk
Satellife is committed to building healthier communities in developing countries through the power of information technology www.healthnet.org/
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
*Denotes the first appearance of the date of conferences and
meetings
Global eHealth Conference 5th -7th May 2001 King Faisal Specialist
Hospital and Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia www.eHealth2001.org
or email Scott Williams at info@eHealth2001.org.
UKTA members meeting 8 May 2001 at Chorleywood Health Centre, North London.
Full programme and venue details will be circulated in the near future
*Telemedicne in Japan & Asia Conference, 10 May 2001. Cambridge.
Contact Mrs Sheila Johnson, Tel 01223 330304 smj27@cam.ac.uk
TEPR 2001 8-13 May 2001, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts
The eHealth conference for the latest developments in key technologies in
health information technology management www.tepr.com/
The Association for Survey Computing, International Conference
on Survey Research Methods, "The Challenge of the Internet" 11-12
May 2001, London. The importance of the Internet to Survey Research is being
increasingly recognised, and its impact extends from data capture through
to dissemination. http://www.asc.org.uk/
*4th Isreali Symposium on Computer Aided Surgery, Medical Robotics
and Medical Imaging, Tel Aviv, Israel 17 May 2001 www.cs.huji.ac.il/~josko/isracas2001.html
The 6th International Symposium on Health Information Management
Research (iSHIMR2001), "Global e-Health: Information Management Issues
for the New Millennium" http://www.city.academic.gr/shimr2001/
from 24-26 May, 2001 in Halkidiki, Greece
*Telemedicine and related technologies in Korea. Friday 25th May 2001, 1200 noon DTI, 1 Victoria Street, London. Email: Trisha.Kelly@port.ac.uk . http://www.tis.bl.uk/korea/seminar.htm, or phone 023 9284 6445.
American Telemedicine Association 6th Annual Meeting - Ft Lauderdale,
Florida, 3 – 6 June 2001 www.atmeda.org
*Healthcare Telematics Support in Transition Countries 7 - 9 June 2001. Bucharest Romania http://atlas.ici.ro/ehto/joint2001
*Medical Imaging and Augmented Reality – MIAR 2001, Hong
Kong 19 – 12 June 2001 www..cse.cuhk.edu.h.k/~miar2001/
6th international conference on the Medical Aspects of Telemedicine
Uppsala, Sweden 18-21 June 2001. For further information email: telemedicine2001@slu.se
, www.service.slu.se/conference/telemedicine2001
Eighth European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
1- 4 July 2001, Cascais, Portugal. http://centria.fct.unl.pt/conferences/aime01
UKTA Members Meeting Friday 6 July 2001. The event will be hosted
by Ortivus in Southampton. Full programme and venue details will be circulated
in the near future
The Information Revolution in Primary Care - Using Health Information
Effectively in the Internet Age 16 July 2001, London. Ruth Hudson, CPHVA Professional
Officer Tel: 0207 939 7055 / 0468 931 312 hudsonr@msf.org.uk
IBC's 6th Annual Drug Discovery Technology 2001 Conference 13-17
August, 2001 Seaport Hotel & World trade Centre, Boston, Massachusetts
www.drugdisc.com/us/?source=biospace2/
Medinfo2001 – the informatics route to knowledge –
towards global health. ExCel Congress Centre, London 2-5 September 2-5 2001.
Call for papers now out on the website www.medinfo2001.org
Intelligent Data Analysis in Medicine and Pharmacology A Workshop
at the Medinfo2001 London, UK, September 4th, 2001 http://magix.fri.uni-lj.si/idamap2001
UKTA Members Meeting Friday 28 September 2001 at the BT innovation
Centre at Adastral Park. The full programme for the event will be circulated
in the near future
*Health Technology 2001 24-24 October 2001, Wembley, London
Email: briony.mansell-lewis@emap.com
TEHRE 2001 11-14 November 2001 at the Cumberland Hotel, London.
For more information: www.medrecinst.com/conferences/tehre/index.shtml
Telemedicine & Telecare International Trade Fair April 10-12,
2002.
www.telemedicine.lu
or email: info@telemedicine.lu
CIRCULATIONS LAST MONTH
NHS Direct/UKTA workshop 18 April 2001
Invitation for members to be involved in OpenTEC proposal for funding to IST
programs ionas@opentec.gr
Telemedicne in Japan & Asia Conference, 10 May 2001. Contact
Mrs Sheila Johnson, Tel 01223 330304 smj27@cam.ac.uk
Launch of Telemedic Systems Vitallink 1200 launch 24 April 2001
vitallink@telemedicsystems.com
Telemedicine and related technologies in Korea. Friday 25th
May 2001, 1200 noon DTI, 1 Victoria Street, London http://www.tis.bl.uk/korea/seminar.htm,
email Trisha.Kelly@port.ac.uk
or phone 023 9284 6445.
Patient Confidentiality & Privacy in the UK www.nhspeople.net/impact/survey.htm
Medical Privacy Site: http://www.gorjuss.com/medicalprivacy
Presentation of Telemedicine / Telecare to the House of Commons Select Committee on Health, Thursday 26 April 2001
AND FINALLY…….
The success of the newsletter depends very much on you! We want
the newsletter to be a tool for you to raise awareness to other members of
the work in which you are involved. This might be the development of new clinical
services, telecare products or new initiatives.
If you would like to contribute to the next circulation please
email monica@denwales.freeserve.co.uk
with your information
Please forward this e-mail to other colleagues who may find it of interest.
Monica Dennis
Administration Officer
UK eHealth Association
Britannia House, 11 High Street, Cowbridge
Vale of Glamorgan CF71 7AD
Tel and fax: 01446 775189
Mobile: 0780 844 2079
Email: monica@denwales.freeserve.co.uk