Harnessing the ‘power’ of technology

At the recent Healthcare Innovation Expo, the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, highlighted the importance of innovation, of ‘thinking differently’ and of ‘harnessing the power of technology’ for the improvement of patient care and patient experience. He called for the NHS to ‘go further’ and ‘much faster’ – claiming that, while other sectors have ‘innovated’, the health service has ‘stagnated’. “The revolution that has transformed so much of our daily lives is only just starting to touch healthcare,” he said, adding that it is important to recognise the improvements in patient safety that technology makes possible: “Whether it is real-time information on hospital mortality rates, comparative data of surgery survival rates or the simple availability to a doctor of a patient’s prescribing history before medication is administered – all should make closer the zero-harm NHS that is such a priority in the wake of Mid Staffs.” He added: “Technology is a means to an end and not an end in itself – but if we ignore what it makes possible, we ignore the biggest single opportunity to transform the delivery of healthcare away from a medical model into a patient and person-centred approach.” Crucial to driving this innovation, according to Jeremy Hunt, will be the use of electronic patient records: “Paper records can only be in one place at a time and are only seen by one person at a time – they are no use to a patient on holiday in Gloucester, if his file is in a Godalming GP surgery; or to an ambulance driver picking up a frail elderly woman in an emergency who, if he could read her notes, could see that she was a diabetic with a heart condition...” He went on to point out that, without a patient’s full history, complications can arise in surgery and serious medication errors may occur; diagnostic tests are often repeated unnecessarily; and patients can find themselves having to repeat their medical history over and over again – sometimes several times, on the same day, in the same hospital.

‘Paperless by 2018’

This is why the decision has been taken to ask the NHS to go ‘paperless by 2018’, he explained. In the lead up to this deadline, the Government will want to see: