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NHS Puts London Patient Records Online This Week

11/16/2009 08:42:00 AM  ,  

The NHS is making it first step forward after a pilot program to put healthcare records on line for residents of London, which means the records can be accessed by any GP in the country.  The NHS has worked hard on putting their program together and has had a line of breaches in the process, mostly those that have been imagehumanly created such as the example below.

The Medical Quack: If You Take the Time to Encrypt Medical ...

Recently too, there has been an increased interest with using PHRs, personal health records from HealthVault and Google Health too as a preferred method of sharing records.  Participants have also had the option to “opt out” if they did not want their records online and some say this has been difficult to work with as far as actually changing the process if your records have already been added.  BD  

The £12bn government program has been beset with problems and is four years behind schedule.

The records, which contain details of patient medications and allergies, will go live on Thursday following pilot studies across England.

It is hoped the system will allow data to be shared more easily. The scheme will also be rolled out across England.

The summary care record is designed to securely hold details of medications, allergies, adverse reactions and other key health information.

It is based on a patient's GP record but is designed so any doctor treating a patient can add to it.  Ruth Carnall, chief executive of NHS London, said: "Getting hold of health records for London's highly mobile population often presents real challenges to doctors and nurses when patients need out-of-hours and emergency care."

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | London medical records go online

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