The power of health information

I went to a fascinating meeting of the BCSHealth Informatics (Interactive Care) Specialist Group where tracking and tagging devices for elderly people, especially those with dementia was discussed in terms of the the New Technology in Elderly Care project (NTEC) by Frank Miskelly. Indeed the huge rise in dementia was featured on BBC news today, though of course it will hit developing countries particularly hard.

The flip side of the tagging discussion was a really good presentation by Dr Paul Johnson from the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust in using mobile recording devices to monitor people with chronic illness over a long period. The excellent point made was that the cross-European study nicely highlighted the importance of good diet in tackling obesity, rather than any sexy wonder drug for example. And the presenter also stressed the fact there are millions of people who are in need of help with chronic diseases oftern caused by diet but who never present to a doctor. Social software applications to the rescue? Certainly the concept of informed patients fits with Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt ‘s speech on 13 December when she stated: “If we want to create a self-improving health service that designs its services around patients, rather than making patients fit in around the service, then we need more choice and a stronger voice for patients and users.” Over to Patient Opinion then as an example of empowering patient choice. But why not finance such social software to promote health education too?

On the flip/flip side of talk of tracking technology was a posting on a blog about the wave of kidnappings of Brazilian footballers’ mothers last year. The one comment was promoting a tracking device which no doubt would be very useful if you were ever kidnapped. In fact I was warned myself about this feature of Brazilian life when I went there last January only for a friend of Juniors to be kidnapped along with the car – luckily she was released, it was only the car the criminals were after.

The NHS opens up to Linux

Novell has announced a £21.8 million contract with the NHS for a new identity management, application management and Linux-based server infrastructure that will improve the delivery of health services to UK citizens.

The overriding benefit of the switch to open source is significant cost cutting. “It secures the NHS an enterprise class open source platform along with, more importantly, affordable support” said Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT. The open source software will support the NHS’s infrastructure, covering more than 600,000 workstations, used by more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health care professionals.

It marks an encouraging step forward since last year’s ‘disappearance’ of the NHS White Paper on converting systems to open source. The NHS withdrew this document from public scrutiny after reverting to a more conservative stance on open source. The big fear then apparently, was that open source meant no guarantee for the maintenance of information systems.

Novell has managed to allay the unfounded fear that Open Source would leave public services (and one as crucial as the NHS!) without support. It will provide consulting resources to deliver the National Programme for IT and ensure best practices throughout all divisions.