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Reboot 12.3.2009

Hello and welcome to reboot, E-Health Insider’s look at the lighter side of life in healthcare technology. We’d love to see your own diary items, media spots and appointments news. All contributions gratefully received: email Lyn Whitfield.

E-Health Insider diary:

Is there life after death? In cyberspace, it seems, there is. Memorial websites and pages on social networking sites have been with us for some time. But now a website has been set up that promises to send out emails and letters from beyond the grave. LastPost.com pledges to save and send letters to coincide with birthdays, graduations, weddings and similar events. “By storing letters for younger family members, senders can be at important life events in spirit, even if they cannot be there in person,” it says.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this otherwise spooky development is that proves nothing but nothing is safe from commercialism. LastPost.com has a mission statement. It wants to be “the world’s most recognised and trusted afterlife brand.”

Reboot acronym of the moment:

Pandemic flu is going to be truly terrible when it hits England, as it surely will. There are any number of dull-looking official documents out on the web that actually prophesy death (up to 750,000 deaths) and disaster (a long-term bill of £172 billion).

So was a civil service planner making a grim little joke when the arrangements for distributing antiviral medicines were being discussed? People who show signs of flu will be asked to ring the National Pandemic Flu line to get a unique reference number that a flu friend can take along to an antiviral collection point. A unique reference number. As people die, the health service will be handing out virtual URNs.

Five years ago on E-Health Insider: Those were the days. Patient records on lost laptops, USB sticks and other devices are now so common that E-Health Insider has to have an unofficial policy on running stories about them. Only a really big loss or a flagrant breach of guidelines gets under the wire. Five years ago, things were different. A single estate agent buying an old USB stick full of records was enough to trigger shock.

“It's the story we had all been dreading,” said newsletter 64, “a breach of security resulted in patient records turning up on a second hand memory stick bought at a local computer store. Healthcare IT specialists will divide between those who say ‘it couldn't happen here’ and those who murmur ‘there but for the grace of God…’” The newsletter went on to argue that an inquiry was needed and so was effective encryption across the NHS.

One year ago on E-Health Insider: NHS chief executive David Nicholson told the World Healthcare Congress in Berlin that the National Programme for IT in the NHS was “not in the right place” and that it had become too centralised. The programme was being reviewed and reshaped, he added: “We are working that through now.” It was also revealed that NPfIT had spent less than half of its planned budget by March 2007, because of non-delivery of care record systems.

Media watch:

E-Health Insider’s exclusive that NHS Connecting for Health was to be re-organised in a shift of power to the Department of Health was followed up by various news sources. Some seemed unsure how important the development was. While Computing headlined the change as a “major shake-up”, the Health Service Journal went for the cosy “IT policy gets a new home”.

Analyst Ovum argued the news of “all change at NHS CFH” might be good news for the agency. “Although CfH itself will lose power, it is possible the re-organisation could benefit its cause. Closer integration of NHS policy with the IT infrastructure is much needed,” wrote analyst Tola Sargeant. “Having some CfH people in senior roles within the DH will put IT experts in a stronger position to influence policy that affects the programme.” Sergeant also felt the changes would help smaller firms, who had been frozen out of contact with CfH.

You, the reader:  

E-Health Insider readers seemed to agree with the broadly positive tone of the press coverage of the shake-up at the top of NHS IT. Asked whether more Department of Health influence over NHS IT would be a good thing or not, 353 readers voted “yes” and 230 “no”.

Movers and shakers:

Have you made a recent appointment that would be of interest to our readers? Or have you recently moved jobs yourself? Let EHI know by emailing us here.

Lyn Whitfield