Tagged: NHS RSS

  • alexandregouveia 18:11 on 28/03/2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , NHS,   

    Dig Out the Data 

    Today, I’ve read the article “Long Live the Database State”, published in July 2009 at the Prospect, after a twit from @Richard56. Although this was published almost a year ago, its content is nowadays even more updated and relevant. This article mainly focus the limited access to the enormous amount of data that is generated everyday in the British National Health Service, data that has been kept away from providers and end-users, hence impairing the main core of the system to adapt to the needs and to evolve by itself.

    Every time we interact with a public service we leave a record—a medical report, perhaps, or an exam result. Those records should be the lifeblood our public services. If shared and analysed—securely—they can help services to improve the quality of their performance. They can also help to prevent problems: identifying, for instance, those at risk from diabetes or even child abuse. And the economic downturn brings new urgency: if public services don’t improve productivity they will soon be unaffordable. (…)

    If we want to have good public services, we are going to have to trust them with our data; and if our public services want us to pay for them, they will have to show us that they are using our data effectively and securely. But armed with the type of data created by Brian Jarman, and the tools built by Richard Webber, we can build safer, cheaper public services that know their users better.

    Leaders and stakeholders all throughout the world should realize that data sharing and analyzing is the next step for the healthcare systems survival and sustainability, from global to local settings. More than never, we need an effective, statistical, secure and responsible interpretation of the information that is being collected by healthcare providers.

    In summary, only knowledgeable healthcare systems are capable of becoming true complex adaptive systems. Only then, they will face effectively the increasing needs and demands of the future.

     

  • alexandregouveia 01:15 on 12/04/2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , NHS, , ,   

    Jay Parkinson: what primary care should be 

    If you have never heard this name before, don’t worry: better late than never.

    jayparkinson

    Jay Parkinson, @jayparkinson, author of the jay parkinson + md + mph blog and a health 2.0 revolutionizer, presented hellohealth in June 2008, a social network between patients and doctors that steps aside from the US healthcare insurance companies and their dense billing system. Although a little focused on an economist point of view, this video from Jay presents the way that primary care should be on the 21st century: personalized and citizen centered healthcare based on a high usage of the communication technologies.

    Is this is the doctor-patient relationship 2.0 ? Probably yes.

    Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Parkinson.

    More information:

    Scienceroll: Jay Parkinson and Hello Health

    Jay Parkinson MD website

     

  • alexandregouveia 19:43 on 15/01/2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , NHS, ,   

    Globalizing Health Knowledge 

    banner2vc

    Some days ago, I wrote a newsletter for the Second Virtual Congress of General Practice and Family Medicine, regarding health literacy and the impact of knowledge in healthcare. This is a subject I am very keen on, and it will dramatically change the way health systems organize themselves and also the relationship between healthcare providers and patients.

    For an aditional point of view, I’m also posting a video interview to Sir Muir Gray, Director of the UK NHS National Knowledge Service, focusing the importance and goals of mapofmedicine®. Thanks to @amcunningham for the bookmark on the video.

    Globalizing Health Knowledge

    Tell me, I forget.
    Show me, I remember.
    Involve me, I understand.
    Chinese proverb

    The everchanging essence of knowledge and the continuous seek for new discoveries have driven mankind to a tenacious dedication for unveiling the paths and boundaries of the human body. The extent of our knowledge about ourselves has increadibly reached the genetic book of life, allowing in a certain way to forecast the future. But is this immense knowledge leading us to higher levels of health literacy?

    Nowadays, citizens are empowered through the fast access to information, and the gap between patients and health information has significantly been curtailed. Health related searches on the internet have increased over the past few years, and online communities of patients, that have physically never met, are flourishing at a fast pace. These current trends of the information and communication technologies are changing the lives of individuals and their families, and also the way that health systems are developing.

    We see health consumers rapidly becoming key health players, taking increased responsability for their health status and data, and ultimately gaining critical knowledge about the quality the health care they receive. Patient-centeredness is a new order, and consequently the web 2.0 effect on the patient-doctor relationship is far for being totally understood.

    For general practitioners and family physicians, who are at the forefront of health care systems around the world, this represents an exciting challenge. Moreover, this undoubtedly requires an upgrade of skills which entails joining the technological breakthrough and to face a new set of communication channels: instant messaging, electronic mail and virtual reality, just to name a few… Reassuring the important role of primary care providers in promoting health literacy is of crucial importance and can be achieved at a global scale, and not just simply in local settings.

    Thirty years after the Declaration of Alma-Ata, primary health care needs once again gather forces in order to help decreasing inequalities around the world. The demands of health care systems require innovative solutions. As such, eHealth now represent the common voice for globalizing health literacy. The main goal for the Second Virtual Congress of General Practice and Family Medicine is to enable the use of eHealth, so as to empower citizens to use health information in an operational way – in other words, working globally for a wiser health.



     

    • Dr Amina Ather 15:29 on 27/01/2009 Permalink | Reply

      Hello! we are yet trying globalizing methods but can we meet on a single platform.

  • alexandregouveia 01:02 on 08/01/2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , NHS,   

    Family Medicine Residency Program in Portugal 

    medicaleducation

    Tiago Villanueva wrote in Medical Education (a forum created by Deirde Bonnycastle) about the Family Medicine curriculum in Portugal, explaining how a medical student becomes a family doctor.

    I’m already preparing myself for the Final Examination in July… almost there! :)


    Family Medicine Residency Program in Portugal

    tiagomgf

    Portugal is a Southwestern European country which has been a member of the European Union since 1986, and a founding member of the Euro Zone since 1999. In 2008, Portugal was ranked the 33rd most developed country in the World according to Human Development Index. There are seven medical schools in Portugal (two in the capital city, Lisbon, two in Porto, one in Coimbra, Braga and Covilhã). Studying Medicine in Portugal takes six years, and afterwards, the newly qualified doctors must take a 100 questions MCQ national examination (whose questions are based on the American textbook ”Harrisson’s Principles of Internal Medicine”), which ranks candidates all over the country. Then, newly qualified doctors choose the specialty and training institution based on the order of choice provided by that ranking, that is, the highest ranked candidate in the country chooses the specialty and training institution of his/her choice, while the lowest ranked candidate has to contend with the leftovers. After graduation and before residency, young doctors must undergo a one-year internship called the common year, in which they rotate through Internal Medicine, Family Medicine and Public Health, Paediatrics, Obstetrics, and General Surgery.

    Even though Family Medicine is not considered a specialty in all European Countries, in Portugal it is considered a medical specialty on par with all the other medical and surgical specialties. There is a three year Residency Program in place, which varies slightly according to the region of the country (North, Centre or South Family Medicine Residency Program Coordination Centre). Residents are assessed on a yearly basis (or after each rotation in the Centre region) according to the following methods:

    Performance Assessment: this is subjective, and carried out by the tutor of the resident in the end of a specific rotation. This could be the resident’s tutor at the practice, or a tutor at the hospital, in the case of hospital rotations. It covers criteria such as

    Knowledge Assessment: this is an oral examination at the end of each year, and covers all the rotations done by the trainee in that year. The jury of the exam consists of two family physicians, and one of them is the tutor of the resident at the practice. Questions are more or less open or closed, for example “What are the referral criteria for Community Acquired Pneumonia”, or “A patient collapses in front of you at the practice. What do you do?”

    Rotation Report: residents must submit an extensive report describing all the activities carried out in each rotation. They are compiled in one single document each year, read by the jury carrying out the yearly examination and criticized. This is more of an actual preparation for the submission of the final CV in the Final Examination (see below).

    Video Recordings of the resident’s consultations: this is not done in every Coordination Centre, for example, in the Centre.

    Final Examination: this is done in the end of the Residency Program, is spread out across several days, and includes a CV discussion, which is submitted previously, a knowledge and practical assessment, the latter implying a real patient encounter, and revolved around history taking skills, physical examination skills, and the ability to integrate information in order to devise a management plan for the patient.

    Tiago Villanueva, M.D.
    GP/Family Medicine trainee, Lisbon, Portugal
    http://www.virtualcongressgpfm.com/

     

    • Video Hosting 10:12 on 17/10/2009 Permalink | Reply

      Very well written post however, I would recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section.

      Keep up the good work.

  • alexandregouveia 17:06 on 21/12/2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: NHS   

    UK NHS of the Future 

    This is a funny video, that shows some interesting ideas regarding the evolution of NHS Connecting for Health.

     

  • alexandregouveia 12:24 on 23/11/2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: NHS   

    disConnecting for Health? 

    disconnectingforhealth

    The british NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) project started in April 2005, as an agency of the Department of Health, and mainly focused on bringing more IT to the NHS: patient health records, ePrescribing, centrally stored images from patients, fast electronic medical records transition between practices, clinical dashboards for monitorizing patients and online finding for medical services are some of the achievments of NHS CfH.

    But is the CfH loosing its drive? According to Suparna Das’s letter published on the recent BMJ edition, “Web 2.0 technology will no doubt disrupt the grand aspirations of the NHS IT project“, due to the fact that the free access to a bundle of Medicine 2.0 techs, such has Google Health, will diverge the attentions of CfH. The Financial Times article NHS records project grinds to halt, states that the “£12bn computer programme designed to give doctors instant access to patients’ records across the country has virtually ground to a halt“, mainly due to the problems faced on implementing the technology hardware on field.

    Although the patients’ records are only a part of the CfH action plan, can this compromises a serious and award-winning important project, and therefore tackling the eHealth development in the UK?

    I hope they don’t get disconnected…

     

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