Speaking Of British Healthcare

[Dubh Aingeal]

Baseline has a major story about a major IT disaster in the UK:

In 2002, the English government embarked on a $12 billion effort to transform its health-care system with information technology. But the country's oversight agency now puts that figure at $24 billion, and two Members of Parliament say the project is "sleepwalking toward disaster"...

In scale, the project... (NPfIT) is overwhelming. Initiated in 2002, the NPfIT is a 10-year project to build new computer systems that would connect more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health-care professionals; allow for the electronic storage and retrieval of patient medical records; permit patients to set up appointments via their computers; and let doctors electronically transmit prescriptions to local pharmacies.

[Head Wreck]

dont get me started on records.

i have two sets of rwecords in each hospital in the area. one for either adress as ten years ago i moved 1 door down the road. they wont merge the documents without higher authority as no-one moves 1 door up the road, there must be two families with identical birthdates and names right next door to each other.

so if a human makes this assumption and nhs went to cheapest bidder for this program god help us.

for past examples of nhs computers, look up LASCAD or london ambulance control system failures

[Marblez]

I work for a major healthcare system in the US. We are working toward this goal with our hospitals and I tell you - it is one hell of an undertaking with just a few hospitals. A whole country on one system? good luck with that!

[Head Wreck]

indeed. and your hospitals probably have departments and wards that communicate with each other rather than our system of "our team is better than yours so there"