A few days ago the University of Leicester published the following survey of some 80,000 people from around the world. Participants in the various studies were asked questions related to happiness and satisfaction with life. The Leicester study also looked at health, wealth and access to education. The results were as follows:
The 10 happiest nations in the world are:
1 – Denmark
2 - Switzerland
3 - Austria
4 - Iceland
5 - The Bahamas
6 - Finland
7 - Sweden
8 - Bhutan
9 - Brunei
10 – Canada
They also reported that Burundi, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the unhappiest nations on the planet.
As a matter of pure co-incidence I had been researching e-Health interoperability and had come across a report on the status of e-health in the very same Denmark.
See the following site for details and a copy of the full documentation covering many countries (including Australia – which receives a report suggesting much planning but little actual delivery as of May 2006.) http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/projects/ride/
I now know why the Danes are so happy (other than having our Princess Mary and a new prince) and why Australia (and the US) do not make it into the top 20. Their e-Health works!
A few statistics make the point pretty clearly.
1. 97% of general practitioners now use EDI, and almost all hospitals are now able to send electronic X-ray results and hospital discharge letters. This is unique coverage unknown in any other country.
2. Electronic patient referrals for hospital treatment and to specialists have not yet been used on a massive scale, nor has the use of laboratory requests so far become particularly widespread. However, in the local-authority area, the number of local authorities that exchange EDI with the hospitals has risen from 12 to 92 during the course of the MedCom IV period (2002-2005).
3. The range of services used by 80+% of GPs include:
• Discharge Letters and Reports
• Outpatient Letters and Reports
• Casualty Letters and Reports
• Image Diagnostic Letters and Reports
• Admission and Radiology Referrals
• Pathology Results (All types)
• GP Prescribing
• Billing (Most Services)
Referrals are now being progressively rolled out.
At present the network (termed MedCom) is EDI based but it is being migrated to an XML based web services environment over 2006.
It seems to me this is proven technology that works and would make a huge difference to clinical care in this country. It would also be easily replicable in a sensible time frame and would be consistent with what is known of NEHTA’s planned directions.
Someone from the Government needs to undertake a detailed study visit (it’s a nice place in Autumn) and then get on with actually doing something here!
David.
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