Programmes such as NHS Connecting for Health may have laid the foundations for changing the way that healthcare works, but its political future is uncertain and new demands must be met.

Healthcare IT systems should improve access to patient information; but if staff have to spend too much time and effort logging-in and finding the details they need, it will remain practically inaccessible.

BlackBerry solutions mean that healthcare professionals can stay securely connected to colleagues and operational data wherever their work takes them.

NHS chief executive David Nicholson has warned that lower funding increases combined with rising demand could leave the NHS facing a £20billion budget deficit over five years.

Healthcare interoperability matters because information cannot follow individuals around increasingly complex health and social care systems unless IT systems can communicate with each other.

"There is an increasingly common theme in healthcare across the world, the need to connect applications, people, and information to deliver patient care beyond traditional organisational boundaries," says InterSystems director of healthcare Phil Birchall.

Intel Health Guide; a personal health system that combines an in-home patient device with an online interface that allows medical staff to monitor their vital signs and communicate with them.

Technology delivers safer blood transfusions.

BlackBerry solutions mean that healthcare professionals can stay securely connected to colleagues and operational data wherever their work takes them.

The traditional doctor-patient relationship is changing as more and more patients use IT to take control of their own healthcare. This EMIS sponsored feature looks at some of the innovative projects that are moving the boundaries.

The launch of NHS Direct in 1997 marked the start of a revolution in the way that the NHS communicates with its users.

The communications landscape in healthcare is changing. Traditional, copper-based and circuit-switched architectures are struggling to keep up with the demands being placed on them.

Over the past one to two years, single sign-on has emerged as an effective way for hospitals to eliminate the challenges associated with multiple passwords, while improving clinician adoption of healthcare IT systems and overall patient and data security.

As Sean Riddell, EMIS managing director, argues in his article in this sponsored feature, information sharing is becoming ever more important as health communities seek to roll out Lord Darzi's agenda of delivering care closer to home.

Patient Information Aggregation: A Strategic Approach to Information Management for Healthcare

Recent reports have stressed the need for good information systems in the NHS. InterSystems can deliver a range of proven solutions to meet the immediate needs of NHS organisations and help them prepare for the challenges ahead.

Over the past five years, the number of patients and citizens registered in systems supplied by healthcare IT specialists, Graphnet, has doubled from nine million to 18 million.

Software Asset Management is rising up the agenda for NHS trusts and the health service as a whole.

This feature, sponsored by EMIS, takes the debate a step further by arguing that interoperability is also vital to providing the very best patient care.

This feature explores answers to all these common scenarios using Evidian’s E-SSO solution which extends the use of Active Directory to deploy single sign-on integrated with the Connecting for Health Smartcard.

N3 is essential to the modern NHS. As the largest Virtual Private Network in Europe it is a project of a scale and complexity that has never been attempted before. N3 is delivered by the N3 Service Provider (N3SP), which is managed by BT.

This feature, sponsored by Imprivata, looks at ways in which NHS trusts around the country are approaching these challenges using single sign-on technology.

Philips is using its leading global position in healthcare speech recognition to drive technology advancements towards reducing medical errors and improving patient safety through verbal information capturing in the electronic health record. 

Clinicians have long been enthusiastic users of dictation machines for recording large volumes of notes and correspondence, so digital dictation and transcription are natural steps for them which introduce many proven efficiencies.

WHIT '07, which will be held in the Austria Centre, Vienna, from 22-25 October, is keen to achieve consensus within the eHealth community and has developed a series of group packages for delegates from all sections of the community to facilitate this.

InterSystems has enabled the rapid creation, deployment and integration of critical applications in the world's most prestigious healthcare institutions. This feature profiles work in three countries and includes an interview with Director Phil Birchall.

This feature, sponsored by Stalis, outlines the risks that must be managed and proposes a solution that provides both the safeguards required and makes best use of the trusts? local data warehouses.

Ensuring that health service workers can communicate with each other effectively and the general public can reach those in the know is critical to fulfilling the NHS's remit.

This feature, sponsored by Huntleigh Healthcare, looks at how the company's systems make this progress possible and gathers views from the clinicians at sites involved in commissioning, deploying and using the new software.

Technology to support patients living with long term conditions is in the news with the recent announcement of three sites to pilot telecare and telemonitoring. It's little wonder there is so much interest from providers and suppliers.

Leading GP software supplier EMIS is thinking big at HC2007 - Europe's largest health informatics conference, which takes place in Harrogate this month.

The rapid digital evolution in e-health requires efficiency in the IT space like never before. In this feature, sponsored by Kodak, we explore solutions provided by grid-based technology

In this feature, 1st Retinal Screen examines the key issues in Diabetic Retinopathy Screening, discusses how they can be overcome and provides examples from PCTs that have been successful in meeting these targets.

This special feature examines how the Qute programme will not only offer GPs an easy way of reconciling bills from secondary care trusts with their own record of patient referrals but also ultimately save them money.

First DataBank Europe examines the key elements of their involvement with NHS Connecting for Health - enabling safer prescribing, dispensing and improved patient care through the provision of drug related clinical decision support.

In these articles we look at some current working examples that demonstrate how the concept of collaborative care and the development of managed clinical networks has become a reality.

This sponsored feature, produced by E-Health Insider in association with Graphnet, looks at three very different scenarios where Graphnet solutions have delivered benefits to patients and clinicians.

In this feature, produced with Codegate, suppliers of the LabelTrace system developed by QuickTrace, we discuss how automating label production can lead to dramatic improvements in accuracy and turnaround.

Articles looking at how organisations can better manage their data warehouses; how they can handle migration of legacy data; and how they can deliver search tools to help all staff find and use data more effectively.

Making information flow smoothly between different health and social care agencies is a shared goal around the globe and this feature profiles some UK services that have made it happen by working in collaboration with specialists in4tek.

This feature, produced with Stalis Ltd, argues that healthcare organisations need to look long and hard at the quality of the data they propose to migrate into the new, integrated systems and speed up their plans.

Is practice-based commissioning (PBC) the pill that will shrink the near-£800m NHS deficit, or will it cause an adverse reaction? Whatever your view, the drive for universal coverage of PBC is under way and accelerating toward the December 2006 deadline.

This feature, sponsored by Graphnet, brings together some practical examples of information sharing in two NHS trusts in Salford and South Staffordshire.

In this feature, sponsored by Philips, we look at the role digital dictation and speech recognition can play in reducing the strain on the healthcare system's financial and human resources.

PCS Web - a groundbreaking new e-record system that gives everyone in the primary care team instant online access to patients' records - is being piloted in three PCTs in England from next month.

E-Health Insider is pleased to join forces with First DataBank Europe for this feature focusing on clinical decision support, exploring both a variety of current issues and the future potential of clinical decision support to make healthcare safer.

E-Health Insider and Telewest Business have created this feature which gives the background to the targets for efficiency gains, provides examples of NHS organisations that have used ICT to make gains and offers 10 top tips for boosting productivity.

The traditional GP's surgery is changing. From internet appointment booking to fingerprint recognition technology in the waiting room, a new breed of electronic services is starting to transform doctors' - and patients' - lives.

This E-Health Insider feature, supported by in4tek, brings together together case studies and news about developments in integrating health and social care information in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Canada.

This E-Health Insider feature, supported by Teknical, offers a guide to current trends in e-learning, practical advice on choosing e-learning packages and some sources of further information.

Tom Nawojczyk, chief executive of in4tek sets out the compelling need for critical information to be available in a coherent, shared record across all concerned health and social care agencies.