Workflow

In one case, 100 percent of Avera's respiratory therapists missed at least one therapy or medication order per day by at least 30 minutes – now, with the new platform, only 11 percent of therapists per day miss an order by that time.

Some doctors at Massachusetts General Physicians Organization have saved more than two hours per clinical session with virtual scribe technology.

NHSmail national outage caused by “software issue” The national NHS email service managed by Accenture suffered a "severity 1" outage midday on 1 December, caused by a “software issue in the supplier’s internal infrastructure”, which meant that NHS staff were unable to access their accounts. All users had their access restored by 8pm, and accounts locked out after multiple login attempts were unlocked by 10.30pm the same day. The NHSmail service is approved by the Department of Health and Social Care for sharing patient-identifiable and sensitive information. “We apologise for the inconvenience caused and worked to resolve the issue as soon as possible, which was caused by an internal issue with the supplier’s software. Thank you to the teams today [1 December] who have worked hard to resolve this,” NHS Digital said in a statement. In November 2016, a software configuration error saw an NHSmail local administrator accidentally email all NHS staff in England after creating a new distribution list intended to include only employees within one Commissioning Support Unit. Around 500 million emails that needed to be processed were sent in only 75 minutes, as staff used the “reply to all” function asking to be removed from the list. The incident resulted in “significant service delays for the majority of the day” at the time, according to a report presented to the NHS Digital board. Webinar: What Innovation Means to Healthcare and Why it Matters Today NHS staff investigated for illegally accessing medical records of Sir Alex Ferguson The Sunday Times has reported that two doctors and a senior hospital consultant were being investigated and “at least” two nurses questioned for accessing former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s medical records. Ferguson was admitted to the Salford Royal Hospital in May this year after suffering a brain haemorrhage. In a statement provided to the paper, Dr Chris Brookes, Northern Care Alliance NHS Group Chief Medical Officer, said an investigation was underway “to determine if the individuals have accessed a patient’s record electronically without a clinical requirement or authorisation”. Last week, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s data protection watchdog, fined a former trainee secretary at a GP surgery in Norfolk for unlawfully accessing 231 patient records without a valid reason to do so. “People whose job allows them access to confidential and often sensitive information have been placed in a position of trust, and with that trust comes added responsibility,” said Mike Shaw, the ICO’s Criminal Investigation Group Manager. “Data protection law exists for a reason and curiosity or boredom is no excuse for failing to respect people’s legal right to privacy. Just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean you should.” New pilot moves the NHS further away from paper prescriptions Eight GP practices in England are piloting a new functionality that could, once fully rolled out, see more than 95 per cent of prescriptions be processed through the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS). The digital system currently allows GP surgeries to send prescriptions to a dispenser (such as a pharmacy) nominated by the patient. But if the new pilot, which will be extended to other practices in 2019, proves successful, the improvement will allow prescriptions for all patients to be sent using the EPS, according to NHS Digital. “In an NHS where thousands of GP surgeries already enjoy the benefits of electronic prescriptions, it can’t be right that there are occasions when archaic paper prescriptions still have to be used,” Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this year. Bupa extends partnership with Babylon Bupa’s existing and new SME customers in the UK with two or more employees will be given access to the Babylon app starting from January next year, the company said last week, after announcing that it would roll out the service to its corporate customers back in June. “Our business customers often say it’s hard to find the time to look after their health, this is even more apparent for employees or owners of a small company,” said Mark Allan, Bupa UK Insurance Commercial Director. “We’re always looking for ways to make access to quality healthcare easier and more convenient – extending our work with Babylon is a key part of this." Twitter: @1Leontina Contact the author: lpostelnicu@himss.org

Eighty percent of users say the technology saves them time, and three out of four believe it has reduced errors.

Cedar View Rehabilitation also has seen a 6 percent decrease in readmissions because it has been able to coordinate care better with external providers.

The draft plan addresses physician concerns around usability, regulation and note bloat, and aims to help vendors improve their designs to improve productivity and user satisfaction.

Since the new discharge platform was introduced at Bon Secours Charity Hospital, it has cut the amount of time case managers need to prepare from a daily average of 35 minutes to eight.

With an aging population, disconnected health information systems and a rising consumer, Hal Wolf, HIMSS President and CEO, says that breaking down barriers to information exchange will support delivery of better services and technology.

Philips Wellcentive’s Business Leader Niki Buchanan also gives tips for women working in the health IT industry.

Nine councils in the UK have been awarded a share of up £700,000 to design and deploy digital innovations for social care through a project led by the Local Government Association (LGA), commissioned by NHS Digital. In June, it was announced that twelve local authorities would receive £20,000 each to identify how digital technology could help address local challenges and improve services, part of a "discovery" funding phase, and initial reviews have now been published by the LGA. “All of this year’s cohort have shown true innovation which made it extremely difficult to decide who to fund for implementation,” said Kate Allsop, Digital Lead on the LGA Community and Wellbeing Board. “The discovery phase has enabled a detailed study of user needs to determine the scope of some really interesting projects.” A pilot in Wirral will now see the council provide biometric wearable devices to people with autism and complex learning disabilities with a view to analyse the data collected to spot anxiety triggers. In London, Havering Council is looking to design an app for social care workers to streamline recruitment processes and ensure information such as employment history or training can be securely shared. The other seven projects will be led by Bracknell Forest Council, Isle of Wight Council, Lincolnshire County Council, Nottingham City Council, Shropshire Council, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, and Sunderland City Council. Last week, NHS Digital announced that the Care Provider Alliance would receive £784,000 to create a new service that would offer digital support for the care provider sector, looking to drive uptake of existing resources.  Twitter: @1Leontina Contact the author: lpostelnicu@himss.org