National Health System (NHS)

See the following -

OSEHRA 2013: OSEHRA CEO Seong K. Mun on iEHR, Future of Open Source EHR

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | August 26, 2013

...Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Seong K. Mun, CEO and president of Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent, otherwise known as OSEHRA, about the prospects for DoD actually picking VistA, his agency’s work on a standard code base that, in the long run, all the VA hospitals could adopt, and what to expect at this year’s conference, which runs from September 4-6, in Bethesda, Maryland.
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Overview of Open Source and VistA in the UK's NHS

There is much widely publicised interest from NHS England in encouraging the development and implementation of open-source software in the National Health System (NHS) with the debate raging in a number of forums, notably on EHI where this article and the comments it has generated are vital reading for anyone interested in this issue. This debate has been fueled by the availability of NHS England’s £260 million Technology Fund which is actively soliciting open source projects include bids to implement an NHS VistA... Read More »

Rethink Data, Transform Healthcare - Unlocking The Value Of Health Data

We are all consumers of healthcare and therefore have a vested interest in its future. As an observation, being an outsider to this sector, the healthcare global system looks increasingly broken as the rate of change and complexity increases. At the same time, my empathy is with those people working inside the profession that provide high quality, compassionate healthcare, and support. But maybe more help is needed to handle the relentless challenges and changes at the edge. Read More »

Success Story of the UK’s First Open Source EHR/EPR to be Revealed at EHI Live

Press Release | IMS MAXIMS | October 26, 2015

Innovative healthcare software provider IMS MAXIMS and Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust are to share the story behind the successful deployment of the UK’s first open source electronic patient record (EPR) at eHealth major industry event, EHI Live. The trust’s director of information, Malcolm Senior, and the CEO of IMS MAXIMS, Shane Tickell, will address delegates in the digital health industry for the first time since the go-live of the system last month.

The State of Health IT in Europe

...In the UK, I heard a great deal about misalignment between IT departments and clinicians.  IT departments are reluctant to embrace social, mobile, analytics, and cloud, instead insisting on centralized command and control of Windows desktop devices, often running Citrix/Virtual Desktop. Clinicians want mobile devices, universal access to applications anytime from anywhere on any device, and big data visualizations... Read More »

UK NHS Delivers Ambitious Health IT Project - Believed to be the Biggest of its Kind

Press Release | HSCIC | February 17, 2016

HSCIC has just completed an ambitious 18 month transition project to entirely rebuild and redevelop the Spine on Open Source software and to move it to in-house management. This was achieved without disrupting the service it provides to 28,000 organisations and enabled the secure transfer of almost 150TB of data, including the demographic details of 80m people. The new Spine is believed to be the biggest public sector IT system to be built entirely on Open Source software, making it easier for developers to work with. It is managed from the Health and Social Care Information Centre's headquarters in Leeds.

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UK's HSCIC Wraps Up NHS Open Source Spine Transition

Mark Say | UKAuthority.com | February 18, 2016

Work on moving the NHS Spine to in-house management and redeveloping it to run on open source software has been completed, following an 18 month transition project run by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). The organisation said it believes the Spine, which provides the technological backbone for connections between clinicians and service providers in NHS England, is now the largest public sector IT system to be built entirely on open source, and this will make it easier for developers to work with.

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UK's Papworth Says No to Epic

Thomas Meek | Digital Health Intelligence | August 4, 2015

...However, in a meeting last week, board members came to the conclusion that Epic did not provide the best value for money for the trust, which is in the middle of a £165 million project to move to a new site at Cambridge Biomedical Campus...In a statement to Digital Health News, a spokesperson said: “Papworth Hospital is committed to providing the most intuitive and cutting edge ICT infrastructure to its staff, to ensure they are well equipped to offer patients the finest possible care in a modern healthcare setting,  whilst also being affordable...

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VistA Is A Rival to Epic and Cerner in Major Deployments of EHR Systems

According to a recent article in Healthcare IT News, Intermountain Healthcare has just signed a multi-year contract to deploy Cerner electronic health record (EHR) systems. The article claims that "only two companies – Epic and Cerner – seem to be in competition for the large and complex deployments."  However, there is a third option that constantly goes unrecognized - the widespread deployment and use of the world reknowned 'open source' VistA system by large scale healthcare provider organizations in the U.S. and overseas. Read More »

What are the options for electronic patient records in the NHS after NPfIT?

SA Mathisson | Computer Weekly | January 1, 2015

It is a common assumption that the NHS can’t do IT. This is untrue: most GP surgeries are computerised, the health services of the UK’s constituent nations have decent technology infrastructure including secure networks and email, and many hospitals departments have good specialist IT. What is true is that many hospitals lack comprehensive electronic patient record (EPR) systems. Read More »

What is openEHR and why is it important?

NHS Wales Informatics Services has been carrying out a technical evaluation into openEHR to test its viability as a repository for structured clinical data. The technology will be rolled out soon to support national projects such as Accelerating Cancer and to provide a shared medications record for NHS Wales. openEHR...offers a specification for a vendor neutral approach to open standards based clinical models and software. On top of this, we can build digital patient records and applications. And as it is a specification, openEHR based tools and repositories are available from several vendors but importantly, they all promise compatibility with each other's products. This means data held in one openEHR Clinical Data Repository (CDR) can be surfaced in a variety of places, natively supporting federated approaches for stakeholder organizations.

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Why Don't we Value Open Source Software Assets?

Developers and software providers love open source software (OSS) for its capability, maturity, accessibility and transparency. So why isn't there more promotion of the use of open source software and why do procurement professionals find it so difficult to grasp the value of open source software? One of the key reasons may lie in the genuine lack of clarity that surrounds the accounting of open source software, which has zero license cost. The ubiquitous use of open source throughout the technology sector coupled with the lack of accounting policy clarity surrounding the acts of creating and open source software, is undervaluing the assets of software intensive sectors like finance and healthcare and of large institutions like the National Health Service (NHS).

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EHI Live 2015

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
November 3, 2015 (All day) - November 4, 2015 (All day)
Location: 
National Exhibition Centre Birmingham
United Kingdom

EHI live, now in its 8th year, is the UK's leading exhibition for digital health, hospital information and healthcare innovation. The event attracts visitors and delegates from around the UK and beyond who are keen to learn from industry leaders and examine new technologies. The EHI Live exhibition gives visitors the chance to see the best that NHS IT suppliers have to offer. EHI Live will take place in Birmingham, UK, Nov 3-4, in Hall 1 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. The event will host more than 250 exhibitors showcasing the latest advances in IT healthcare solutions. It will also feature free-to-attend conferences that will address the major healthcare IT industry issues such...[including] the annual HANDI Health Apps conference which features its own specialist app zone, a feature dedicated to the use of open source technology.

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HANDI Health Apps Conference 2015

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
November 3, 2015 (All day) - November 4, 2015 (All day)
Location: 
Hall 1 Birmingham NEC Birmingham
United Kingdom

HANDI Health Apps is the first national conference dedicated to health and care apps and lightweight digital tools to take place in the UK.  Now in its third-year this event is a “must attend” for app developers, health and care professionals, managers and commissioners and others seeking to understand how digital tools can support the delivery of efficient, patient centred care. HANDI Health Apps will take place in Birmingham, UK, Nov 3-4, in Hall 1 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

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