Study slams UK e-government improvements as "marginal": A new report by the analyst firm Hewson Group shows that four years of e-government initiatives have delivered little more than marginal improvements for most local authorities in the UK. The Hewson Group publishes the findings in the first edition of its new Public Sector Bearing series, which includes the input of IT consultants working with UK local authorities. The report notes that leading private companies have focused on using IT to deliver services faster and cheaper and have undergone significant cultural changes, and says that public bodies have not followed suit. The authors point to a "worrying lack of will to do more than merely finesse current working practices, rather than change them" among local authorities. More information is available from the Hewson Group.
Irish Defence Forces upgrade network: The Irish Defence Forces has completed an upgrade of its wholly owned network in Ireland, including a new microwave radio infrastructure that links eight of its sites in the Leinster area and combines voice and data on a converged network. The network, which was upgraded by the ICT services company Damovo using equipment from Ericsson and 3Com, now has an increased bandwidth capacity totalling 34Mbit/s. The upgraded network will serve a user base of more than 10,500.
Norway looks to introduce single travel e-ticket: The Norwegian government is looking to introduce legislation that will help pave the way for citizens to use a single electronic ticket for all public transport. The country's Public Roads Administration had previously published guidelines for electronic ticketing systems, but the new legislation goes a step further by making it mandatory for a common standard to be introduced by all public transport bodies. The department is also looking to develop a system that can provide travel information by phone or internet, including information on accessibility for passengers with disabilities.
Hospitals leading the way in IT also have better outcomes: An annual study into the use of IT in hospitals has shown for the first time that the most "wired" US hospitals also have better patient outcomes. The survey by Hospitals & Health Networks, the Journal of the American Hospital Association, found that mortality rates were 7.2 percent lower in the most wired hospitals, those institutions that make extensive use of IT tools to address quality of service. The journal is careful to point out that there is no causal relationship between IT and outcomes, but it does state that heavy technology users are also the most successful institutions. The most wired institutions make extensive use of tools like bedside electronic medication matching and automated alerts and reminders. Among the most wired institutions, significantly larger percentages of physicians also enter orders themselves, compared with other organisations. The study also showed that these institutions also conduct a larger percentage of clinical transactions -- the number of doses ordered and the number of medications matched to the patient -- using IT.
Autor: Sheila M. Averbuch
Quelle: ElectricNews, 14.07.2005
