Information Technology has changed dramatically over the years and has always been important to certain sectors in the way they work in recent times. With this one thing that can always be said is that it is rapidly changing among all sectors of work. Technology is helping the way people and businesses work from day to day.

So bearing that in mind can IT help to improve Healthcare?

Yes it can! “IT has already begun to improve Healthcare”. The fact is technology already has had an impact on improving Healthcare, as much of what is done now could not be done without the technology of today.

Information Technology has made patient care safer and even more reliable that before. Doctors and nurses are now using handheld mobile devices to record patients medical history and to check the correct treatment is being carried out. These mobile devices known as Mobile Clinical Assistants also have access to results of lab tests, records of vital signs and medical orders, which are all put onto a main database electronically. Thus meaning they are accessible from a patients bedside.

Information Technology is also making large strides in improving healthcare through Social Media.

The term Social Media gets used a lot and has become part of technology we use in everyday life as a form of communication. Healthcare Facilities, including many NHS Trusts, have taken note of this and have consequently begun to use Social Media, Such as Facebook and Twitter, to establish contact with patients, raising awareness on certain healthcare issues.

With more choice given to patients and the continued support in the patient taking an active role in their care, are we now more dependent on IT to help deliver care.?

So while pondering on that question, Is the real talking point this “Is technology being used in the Correct way to help enhance the service that is provided to patients and clients by the experts?” Rather than “Can information Technology help improve Healthcare?”

For more information on how Mhealth is and technology is improving lives of clinicians and patients go to www.tracline.co.uk

Intel, the firm that brings most dual core processors to computers in peoples homes have had a crack at a supercomputer co-processor. The firm showed off the latest technology, one teraflop chip which is equal to one trillion calculations per second.

The new Chip created by Intel has been dubbed "Knights Corner" at a supercomputing conference held at Seattle. The latest release pits the firm against rival add-on processors from AMD and Nvidia.

The new Knights Corner chip acts as a co-processor as it takes over the more difficult and complicated tasks from the Computers Central Processing Unit (CPU). not only this but the chip offers Double Precision processing which results in faster and more accurate calculations and forecasts.

As far as the specifications go, Intel are yet to release any data in regards to its new Knights Corner. But early indications are that it packs more than 50 cores onto one piece of silicon.

In a brief statement made by Intel, the firm moved on to say that the accelerator is also the first server processor which can support full integration of the PCI express 3.0 specifications. The Knights Corner chip allows data to be transferred at twice the speed of its predecessor, 32GBps up from 16GBps, on compatible devices.

Click here to register for London

Click here to register for Manchester

Carefx will be showcasing the benefits of how its clinical portal technology can be deployed on Tracline’s latest Motion C5 tablet at EHI Live 2011 in Birmingham.

Tracline will be demonstrating how mature mobile technology and clinical portals go hand in hand to provide clinicians with the ability to work in a more efficient and safer way.

Whether you are interested in the technology, the politics or the management of e-health, there is something for you with paid-for and free opportunities for updating, learning and networking. To find out how mobile working can benefit your organisation, visit stand C72 or email hparslow@carefx.com /info@tracline.co.uk to arrange a demonstration

According to the BBC, a recent report has found that Hospitals in the UK could help prevent thousands of deaths a year. The report states that hospitals with better use of Information Technology see a fall in deaths of emergency patients over the year.

Univerity Hospital Birmingham have a system in place which the trust say has contributed to the 17% fall in deaths among these emergency patients. The system includes a reminder system which makes sure patients medication dose is not missed. The report shows how the trust also used the system to prevent potential prescriptions that could harm a patient.

Health Minister Simon Burns said the system was “an excellent example of how the NHS can harness information to improve patient care”.

“Our ambition is to unleash a revolution of information throughout the NHS, so that everyone benefits from a modern, responsive service,” he said.

The system at University Hospitals Birmingham is one of several commercially available to the NHS. The chief executive of the Patients Association, Katherine Murphy, welcomed the work at the trust.

“This system has the potential to really make a big difference to patient safety across the board. By highlighting ongoing problems and trends in patient care, ward and trust leaders can put changes in place to prevent other patients from suffering in the same way, learning from their mistakes rather than trying to bury them under bureaucracy.”

Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, Glasgow    23 & 24 August 2011

Tracline will be attending the NHS Scotland 2011 for the first time with Northgate managed services our partners in mobile point of care projects within Scotland. This leading healthcare event together with Northgate will provide Tracline an excellent opportunity to showcase our services and activities that help support the delivery of quality health and healthcare services in NHSScotland. 

 Success’s include

NHS Lanarkshire – Tracline in partnership with Northgate provided NHS Lanarkshire with a Managed Service to implement their MPOC strategy. The strategy included the supply, Implementation and support of 350 Medical Tablet PC’S for use in all the wards across the 3 main hospitals at Monklands, Wishaw and Strathclyde. The Medical Tablet PC’s  access the new Trackcare EPR system over a wireless network giving the clinicians access to live patient data at bedside in a safe and professional manner.

NHS Lothian – Tracline and Northgate are working in partnership with NHS Lothian on implementing a successful MPOC strategy across the Hospitals. Tracline have supplied St Johns Hospital with 150 Medical Tablet PC’s and professional services for Clinicians to utilise as part of their e-prescribing strategy. The strategy is now to deploy wireless networks and MPOC strategies into the other hospitals in the Edinburgh area.

NHS Fife – Tracline and Northgate are working in partnership with NHS Fife to provide them with the Motion C5v Medical Tablet PC’s for their MPOC strategy. Amongst other projects NHS Fife are leading a clinical trial with the Patientrack EWS system to improve patient care in the vital signs area.

Come to see us on: Stand 42

http://www.nhsscotlandevent.com/Home

The STYLISTIC Q550  enables hardware based security to meet the most stringent requirements; with

fingerprint authentication, smartcard reader, a multi touch interface and

full day working battery life as standard features.

Dear Colleagues

Intel Digital Health have invited Tracline to present NHS mobile point of care success stories at The World of Health IT  This event is designed to connect leading health IT experts, and we would like to invite you to the conference and workshops. Details of the Intel workshop sessions are attached, and we would be grateful if you could please forward this to your colleagues.

To find out more about Mobile working projects in the NHS, case studies and videos can be found at www.tracline.co.uk which will also feature a video of the conference.

For more detailed information about the conference and to register for free, please click on www.worldofhealthit.org

We look forward to welcoming you to the World of Health IT, and please let us know if you have any questions.

Phone:            020 8952 7770
Email: CustomerServices@tracline.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/tracline
Web:  http://www.tracline.co.uk/

An ageing population and extreme pressure on costs means health services must take a more focused approach to their use of IT.

As global populations age and the prevalence of chronic disease rises, it is increasingly clear that no country can deliver higher-quality, affordable healthcare without significantly reforming the way health systems function financially and improving co-ordination among all those who care for patients.

This approach requires secure, shared access to accurate clinical information. As such, it needs the Department of Health, NHS, and other organisations to continue to design and implement a new information infrastructure that can deliver the right data to the right stakeholders in ways that improve clinical outcomes and lower the cost of care.

 
Twenty-first century healthcare requires more intelligent care delivery where the patient is at the centre of care, and Intel provides an architecture that provides increased access and encourages innovation across the system.

 
Four trends

 
From Intel’s perspective, the needs of the NHS are shaped by four trends or requirements that must be addressed by any information architecture. We call them the four Cs:

 
The first is complexity. Healthcare systems are being asked to manage an environment that encompasses patients with more complex illnesses and co-morbidities. In addition, they are dealing with ever more complex data types and information streams and an increasing number of people involved in care management.

 
The next trend is co-ordination. To support the move to team-based models of care, healthcare systems must accommodate the information and workflow requirements of each and every individual and organisation involved directly or indirectly in patient care.

 
Collective responsibility is our third “c”. Alternate payment schemes will become more prevalent, pushing groups of healthcare professionals to share end-to-end responsibility for the collective health of large populations. They will be paid collectively for quality-based results.

 
Finally, community-based care will become increasingly important, as greater emphasis is placed on wellness and caring for patients in the most cost-effective locale that is suitable for their needs. Care capacity will rest on a growing workforce of community health workers who must be trained, monitored and evaluated, and whose workflows must be supported with mobile tools and information.

 
Start now

 
Embracing these enabling technologies requires changes in behaviour and culture. Careful attention must be paid to workflow redesign, workforce development, and business process to ensure this is a lasting fix. Reform and innovation must become embedded within healthcare culture, and both process changes and infrastructure development must be ongoing and iterative.

 
For more than a decade, Intel has worked with healthcare leaders around the world to design and deploy robust IT solutions for healthcare, and we continue to do so. We provide on–the-ground support in dozens of countries to help healthcare organisations identify the workflow changes and information infrastructure needed for optimal care and efficiency.

 
Integrated care delivery is a response to unavoidable demographic and cost trends, but it does now represent a tremendous opportunity for healthcare leaders to truly lead; to get ahead of changes that are inevitable and chart a course to higher-quality, more accountable, and more cost-efficient care.

As the current healthcare delivery system takes on older patients, becomes increasingly expensive, and is marred by a significant shortage of medical staff, advances in mobile technology for healthcare, which reduces costs and closes the geographic gap in care between patients and healthcare providers, has the potential to transform the way healthcare is delivered. That’s the conclusion of a report from Arthur D. Little, a global management consultancy firm.

Published earlier this week, the report – “Capturing Value in the mHealth Oasis: An Opportunity for Mobile Network Operators?” — focuses on the changing dynamics of the healthcare delivery system, and the role that mobile network operators (MNOs) can play as they provide mHealth systems for healthcare delivery organizations.

Undoubtedly, the mobile health or mHealth market is growing. According to the report, “given the prospects for mHealth, it is not surprising that analysts are estimating mHealth’s potential value to be up to $10 billion within the next five years.” Other reports have pegged mHealth’s potential market value even higher.

The term mHealth describes the use of mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets like the iPad, and other mobile devices that enable the transmission of patient information among healthcare providers at the point of care.
The report from Arthur D. Little breaks down the healthcare market into two categories — a developed market and an emerging market — and said that both are unsustainable and require different approaches from MNOs as they seek to build a business in a healthcare system that is upgrading its technology infrastructure.

The developed market, the report said, has an aging population whose care is in large part focused on long-term management of chronic conditions where care becomes increasingly expensive. In this market, there is more likely to be an established healthcare infrastructure, and a highly regulated healthcare environment that enforces controls on the provision of healthcare, its participants, and the accessibility of medical records. In this market, the report recommended that mHealth providers should leverage existing technologies. The report also suggested that mHealth should be seen as a complementary system that can bring sophisticated enhancements to traditional healthcare services.

By contrast, emerging markets face shortages of trained medical staff, which has resulted in the inability of patients to get basic medical care. Additionally, emerging markets suffer from an inadequate healthcare infrastructure and have few regulations. And many patients have little ability to pay for the service. But there is rapid growth in mobile penetration. In this market, penetration will come from simplifying the terms for adopting the technology. The report also notes that in emerging markets mHealth can provide fundamental healthcare access to the masses.

According to Karim Taga, director at Arthur D. Little’s Telecoms, Information, Media & Electronics (TIME) Practice, mHealth is unlike any other mobile service and requires a completely new marketing strategy. He also said creating mHealth systems will differ depending on the demand for, and the nature of, mHealth services and the degree of development and specific characteristics of individual markets.

“In emerging markets, mHealth solutions, such as the delivery of medical information by SMS or MMS, medicine reminders, remote data collection, and medical help-lines, can help improve patients’ access to basic medical care. In these markets, the MNO must take a leading role in developing the ecosystem, and most crucially, must also engage the support of non-governmental organizations and government agencies with local expertise,” Taga said in a statement.

He added that in developed markets with rapidly increasing smartphone penetration, health industry players are entering the mHealth market as a way to drastically reduce costs while focusing on prevention.
“In these markets, remote monitoring will be a key revenue driver. These services are typically offered at a premium, enabling mobile operators to add significant average revenue per user,” Taga said.

The report noted that while mHealth is still a nascent market, there have been signs of significant growth potential, particularly in developing countries, where the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablet devices, such as the iPad, by healthcare providers has triggered a significant growth in the use of mHealth applications.

It is estimated that the market for such applications will reach $1.7 billion by the end of 2014. Furthermore, more than 500 million people, or roughly one-third of smartphone users, are expected to use healthcare mobile applications on their smartphones by 2015, the report said.