United Kingdom (UK)

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Socrata Partners With Ethos To Deliver Government Open Performance Solution In The United Kingdom And Europe

Press Release | Socrata, Ethos | March 18, 2014

Socrata, a Seattle and London-based, open government, open data, and open performance solutions company, has announced a strategic partnership with UK headquartered, Ethos, the leading provider of “Smart City” solutions. Together, Socrata and Ethos will partner to deliver an open performance solution specifically designed to create measurable outcomes for cities and municipalities in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.

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Some U.K. Health Experts Eye U.S. Veterans Affairs IT System

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | January 5, 2012

Chris [Richardson] spoke of a grass-roots movement in England to try and persuade the folks running one or more of the 60 or so regional health “trusts” administering National Health Service programs there to give VistA a try....

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Spain switches 40,000 PCs to Linux and Open Source software

Lawrence Latif | The Inquirer | April 30, 2013

The Spanish Region of Extremadura has announced that it will switch 40,000 government PCs to open source software. Read More »

Sssh! DataWell’s Clear-Cut Priority Is the Protection of Confidentiality

Michael Cape | Super North | March 17, 2016

Everywhere people are, be it out shopping in a supermarket or sitting at home online, they are adding information to their digital footprint – which feeds into what is known as Big Data and so enables them to be traced. The use of Big Data can be beneficial to society, particularly in terms of health – which is why Gary Leeming’s job as director of informatics for the Greater Manchester Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) is to source and use the digital health footprints of patients both their for own benefit and that of clinicians...

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State of Health: Why A Global Approach Is Key To Solving Health Care’s Biggest Challenges

Steven J. Thompson | LinkedIn | March 20, 2014

A lot of attention has been paid to the idea that patients, in particular those from the U.S., can now travel to other countries to get surgery or other treatments at lower cost than what’s available locally. But the idea that patients will be likely to travel to find the best deal in treatment, no matter where it is, has been overblown in my opinion (and as recently outlined in The Economist).

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Study Finds That Up To Half Of Antibiotics Fail Due To 'Superbugs'

Rebecca Smith | Business Insider | September 26, 2014

GPs are increasingly handing out antibiotics that turn out to be useless, as up to half of courses of the drugs 'fail' and result in further treatment, a study has found...

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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.

Survey: Quarter Of US Consumers Has Heard Of Bitcoin — And Majority Of Them Trust It

Natasha Lomas | TechCrunch | June 28, 2013

Depending on your view, Bitcoin is either A) an elaborate Ponzi scheme or B) the currency of the future. Or, if you’re the average man on the street, it’s probably C) something you’ve never heard of. Read More »

Sweet Snacks 'Link To Bowel Cancer'

Staff Writer | BBC | July 14, 2013

Fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits, crisps and desserts may increase the risk of bowel cancer, according to a new study. Read More »

The Evolving Role of Open Source Software in Medicine and Health Services

In this article, we highlight the barriers to progress and discuss the dangers of pursuing a standardization framework devoid of empirical testing and iterative development. We give the example of the openEHR Foundation, which was established at University College London (UCL) in London, England, with members in 80 countries....We argue that such an approach is now essential to support good discipline, innovation, and governance at the heart of medicine and health services, in line with the new mandate for health commissioning in the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), which emphasizes patient participation, innovation, transparency, and accountability. Read More »

The Grim Propect of Antibiotic Resistance

Staff Writer | The Economist | May 21, 2016

When people hear about antibiotic resistance creating “superbugs”, they tend to think of new diseases and pandemics spreading out of control. The real threat is less flamboyant, but still serious: existing problems getting worse, sometimes dramatically. Infections acquired in hospital are a prime example. They are already a problem, but with more antibiotic resistance they could become a much worse one. Elective surgery, such as hip replacements, now routine, would come to carry what might be seen as unacceptable risk. So might Caesarean sections. The risks of procedures which suppress the immune system, such as organ transplants and cancer chemotherapies, would increase...

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The Growing Field of Ecotherapy

James Hamblin | The Atlantic | October 1, 2015

The first time J. Phoenix Smith told me that soil has healing properties that can help thwart depression, I just nodded slowly. Smith is an ecotherapist, a practitioner of nature-based exercises intended to address both mental and physical health. Which means she recommends certain therapies that trigger in me, as a medical doctor, more skepticism than serenity: Listen to birdsong, in your headphones if necessary. Start a garden, and think of the seeds’ growth as a metaphor for life transitions. Find a spot in a park and sit there for 20 minutes every week, without checking your phone, noting week-to-week and seasonal changes in a journal...

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The New Health IT Arms Race Between The US And EU

Nicole Fisher and Ben Heubl | Forbes.com | March 10, 2014

If you were to ask anyone in the United States what “health access” meant to them, you would get a different answer. In the UK, for most people, it means the ability to access National Health Service (NHS) amenities.

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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 »

Three More Hospitals in the United Kingdom Adopt Open Source EPR (EHR)

OpenMaxims, an electronic patient record (EPR) system developed in the United Kingdom (UK) and made available as open source software, is being adopted by three additional hospitals in the UK. The software solution is being implemented for the Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Clifton Hospital and Fleetwood Hospital, all three in England's northwest coast. The three hospitals form the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust started implementing OpenMaxims in December.