The following interesting and related articles have appeared recently.
First we have:
NICE launches BNF smartphone app
14 June 2012 Chris Thorne
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has launched a free version of the British National Formulary smartphone app for health and social professionals employed by NHS England.
The NICE BNF app has been developed to provide easy access to the latest up-to-date prescribing information from the BNF, the most widely-used medicines information reference guide used within the NHS.
The app is available to download for free via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Users will need their NHS Athens user name and password to activate the app and download the content.
The app provides direct offline access to the latest version of the BNF, giving a user access to BNF on their smartphone or tablet even when there is no internet connection available.
Lots more here:
Second we have:
Research fills in Map of Medicine
21 June 2012 Rebecca Todd
About half of GPs and a quarter of community staff are using the care pathways tool Map of Medicine, new research suggests.
Map of Medicine is a collection of evidence-based practice-informed care maps, rolled out to GPs and community users as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust IT Services manager Colin Cohen has been studying the Map of Medicine project as part of a thesis for his doctorate.
Phase one of his research involved sending an online questionnaire to GPs and community health staff in NHS Thameside and Glossop, which showed that 55% of GPs used Map of Medicine and 28% of community staff.
A similar survey about a year before revealed the same results. Cohen was surprised at the level of usage and felt 55% was “better than I might have thought."
He explained that his area might have higher usage than others because Map of Medicine was given a “big push” about a year ago by the primary care trust.
Lots more here:
So here we have to widely used and influential clinical support applications of the sort we know can make a difference to the quality of care that simply we see no interest from our Government in doing something similar.
See this paper for evidence of how useful such resources can be:
The bottom line here is that provision of useful information at or near the point of care can make a difference - and although recommended in the 2008 National E-Health Strategy zilch has happened. Maybe a small investment here could distract a little from the train-wreck elsewhere?
Half a billion dollars on an unproven PCEHR and they won’t even do for lots less money what has been proven to work on a national basis.
Half a billion dollars on an unproven PCEHR and they won’t even do for lots less money what has been proven to work on a national basis.
Shame.
David.