Those Canny Scots are at IT Again!

Many reports of the Scottish Executive’s new E-Health Strategy this week.

Scotland commits to incremental e-health

01 Jul 2008

The Scottish government has pledged to further consolidate its SCI Gateway and SCI Store, and enhance its Emergency Care Summary Service, in its new e-health strategy for 2008-11.

The strategy lays out NHS Scotland’s approach to ‘electronic patient records and electronic communication becoming the primary means to manage healthcare information within the health system.’

While no specific budgetary commitment has been made, the Scottish Executive says it aims to boost the national e-health budget from the £40m spent in 2005/6 to £140m in 2010/11. In total it says NHS Scotland spent £225m on IM&T in 2006/2007.

It reiterates the commitment to stick to its current step-by-step approach and build on the systems already in use in Scotland: “We have already successfully implemented initiatives such as SCI Store, SCI Gateway and the Emergency Care Summary which help us to join systems and share information but we need to move further.”

Big bang approaches to e-health are rejected as risky and potentially disruptive: “An attempt to move to this new world in a single bound, even if achievable, would take a number of years and would be disruptive. NHS Scotland has to date chosen to approach this vision step-by-step; by building on what we have already successfully achieved, carefully addressing risks and resources to gain benefit from our effort as we go,” says the report.

Examples of exploiting existing systems includes using the SCI Gateway – a national system that integrates primary and secondary care systems - and SCI Store - an information repository which is integrated to other local systems - to support the information and reporting framework for the 18-week waits programme. This is envisaged to be completed by September

The Emergency Care Summary will also be enhanced over the next three years with additional items of patient information, such as a single medication record, and it will also be made available to a wider user base.

Lots more here:

http://www.ehealtheurope.net/news/3904/scotland_commits_to_incremental_e-health

Download the Strategy here e-health Strategy 2008.

The release is also covered here:

Scotland launches e-health strategy for 2008

Tuesday 1st July 2008

The Scottish government has launched its e-health Strategy 2008 at this year's NHS Scotland Event.

The vision for e-health supports the goals as set out in the Better Health Better Care Action Plan.

The plan aims to exploit the power of electronic information to help ensure that patients get the right care, involving the right clinicians, at the right time, to deliver the right outcomes. It is therefore as much about transforming traditional processes as it is about technology.

Nicola Sturgeon said: "Building for the future means an investment in new technology. Our eHealth Strategy demonstrates how we intend to harness the opportunities of new technology to enhance patient care.

More details are found here:

http://www.hospitaliteurope.com/default.asp?title=Scotlandlaunchese-healthstrategyfor2008&page=article.display&article.id=12067

Coverage from the GP perspective is here:

Scottish GPs to get choice of systems

30 Jun 2008

The Scottish government is to set up a national framework contract for GP systems and launch a procurement for an IT system or systems to replace GPASS, according to its new e-health strategy.

The plan means Scottish practices are likely to be brought under a Scottish version of England’s GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) agreement with boards given flexibility about how to meet the needs of community staff. In addition a procurement will be launched for a system to replace GPASS although it is unclear whether this will involve one or more systems. Plans to procure a system that covers both primary and community staff appear to have been dropped.

The e-health strategy for Scotland was launched by Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon last week at the NHS Scotland Event held to celebrate 60 years of the NHS in Scotland.

The deputy first minister told the conference the three year strategy from 2008 to 2011 would enable Scotland to build the platform for an electronic patient record to support patients and improve their experience of care throughout the healthcare journey.

More here:

http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/3900/scottish_gps_to_get_choice_of_systems

There is not much to really add. Scotland has worked steadily and incrementally and it is really paying off as their capabilities and range of available applications increases.

Well worth a browse.

David.

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