Millennial Doctors and IT
The Secret Writings of a Junior Doctor. I recently attended an NHS IT Conference – it was about Innovation, new technology, a paperless service and digital technology. They all are right, but the thing that struck me was how everything looked the same as it always has. Vendors displayed their latest versions of tried and […]
Read More
The challenge of delivering quality healthcare at a lower cost
The pressure on costs seems to be never ending for those involved in the delivery of Healthcare to an ever-aging patient population, especially with increasing co-morbidities and therefore complexities for our clinicians to address. Often the words ‘cost reduction’ are seen as very negative and the view is often that cost reduction will lead to […]
Read More
Bloods, Blogs and Bleary-Eyes
The Secret Writings of a Junior Doctor. Junior doctors enter the profession wide eyed, stethoscoped up, and ready to put their years of book-worming to good use. In many cases, however, we find ourselves doing something completely different. A role less “House” and more “House-keeping”. As Junior Doctors, we are the file carriers, the blood […]
Read More
Point of care documentation: A call to action
Driven by the Affordable Care Act, which was put into law in 2010, electronic health records (ehr’s) and their usage has soared. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services statistics, approximately 95% of hospitals and over 60% of ambulatory practices attested for meaningful use in 2016 using a certified EHR. Out of the […]
Read More
Winter Pressures & Integration
Year in and year out we have been used to hearing about the winter pressures that the NHS and indeed, other Healthcare systems are facing. We predict them in advance and then respond to them with the funding available, often with annual re-occurring emergency funds (how often does an emergency fund have to re-occur yearly […]
Read More
‘Can I have my record please?’
Only a few years ago, conversations around ‘who owns the patient record’ were not such a big issue, nor as widely discussed. If anything, it rather related to physician data ownership than recognising the voice of the patient. For a long time, I never even knew that I could ask for access to my record, or […]
Read More
Just What Does AI Mean and Does it Matter?
When we say AI, depending on your age you will either think of Metropolis, Hal from 2001 or Terminator. What you might not think of is a calculator but in essence AI right now is a computer doing something really really fast – just like a calculator. From little Acorns grow…! AI is hard to […]
Read More
Data Security In Dangerous Times
It is an irony of the times we live in, that, while the need for securing our data becomes more urgent and the consequences for failing to do so become more dire, the internet is becoming a more dangerous place. The number of companies suffering data breaches has grown steadily over the last 10 years […]
Read More
Choosing Healthcare IT: A 5 point Checklist for Getting It Right
“Don’t ask Doctors what they want, they have no idea what they want!” As a Doctor new to the industry of software development, this statement irked me somewhat. Of course doctors know what they want! As do nurses, pharmacists, and the wealth of other highly-trained professionals working in our hospitals. More specifically, they know that […]
Read More
Do I need another X-ray?
I never really considered the history and impact of X-rays, until my awareness grew around radiation exposure and its effects on children. I was fascinated and decided to do a bit of research on the subject, not knowing where this would lead. Tim Newman posted an interesting article titled ‘Are X-rays really safe?’ on Medical […]
Read More
The Evolution of Microservices
Evolution is a constant feature of the Information Technology (IT) Industry. The environment is in constant flux. The landscape constantly changing. New opportunities arise for nimble, better-adapted systems to fill new gaps in the new ecosystem, and existing inhabitants get squeezed, possibly even out of existence. When confronted with such a changing environment, you evolve, […]
Read More
Dying for Data
How conventional EHR’s are contributing to Physician burnout and what can be done. “Almost one third of Irish hospital doctors experienced burn-out, indicating suboptimal work conditions and environment”1 “50% of doctors reported being emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed by work”1 “The annual cost of physicians spending half of their time using EHRs is over $365 billion […]
Read More
Quality and Infocare
In our fast-changing online world, customers expect a business to be more efficient, deliver value faster, better and with higher levels of quality and service. In this blog we will zoom in on quality. Soteria® promotes quality healthcare and patient safety through its technology to standardise the processes of care and to ensure that accurate, […]
Read More
Will Nature or Nurture Win the Wearables Market?
There is only one way, that does not involve finding a magic money tree, that the pressure on the NHS and Social Care can be eased in the long term, and that is by people living healthier lives and being accountable for their own healthcare. The problem is that human nature has been overtaken by […]
Read More
Why implementing IT4IT has been a good decision
Delivering value as one team With a lot of siloed processes and disparity within your departments and/or teams, there is an urgent need to align and connect all teams and have them constantly add value. If you believe this only affects large multinationals, you are wrong. This is also very apparent and visible in a […]
Read More
Preventable Harm In Healthcare
INTRODUCTION “Primum non nocere”, the Latin phrase that means “First, do no harm” is part of the Hippocratic Oath and is a basis for ethics taught in medical school. Preventing harm, in the context of healthcare delivery, is of great importance to patient safety, overall quality and reducing the cost of care. While a goal […]
Read More
The Long and winding road(map)
The long and winding roadThat leads to your doorWill never disappearI’ve seen that road before It always leads me hereLead me to your door John and Paul wrote this song (1) almost 50 years ago and I would like to show you that even in today’s world it’s still a long and winding road to […]
Read More
System Usability – Giants, Unicorns, Batman and the Joker
When designing systems, and making products usable, it is important that we see the end from the beginning.The clearer our vision of where we are going, the better we are able to plan the journey. You need to understand the problem you are trying to solve. A system in itself is not the end, but […]
Read More
Performance and Reliability in Healthcare Systems
Medicine has been around for thousands of years and throughout the vast majority of this time, it has gotten on fine without computers. Even today, more medical practices use good old-fashioned pen and paper than electronic systems. Even though there are many important and potentially life saving advantages to using these systems, users will only […]
Read More
PERFORMANCE AND RELIABILITY OF HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS (TECHNICAL)
Technology today is offering a wealth of opportunities for the care industry, but with that also comes a depth of challenges. Not least the ever-moving target of new technologies adapted by vendors, employees and other care providers. For critical medical devices we can still turn to familiar certifications for standards of quality. A well established […]
Read More
