In a report titled Remote Control, the NHS Confederation, which represents about 95% of trusts and other NHS bodies says that "active and passive" resistance by doctors, often based on incorrect assumptions about what patients want, has "stifled" the use of telemedicine and electronic health records in the NHS.
The confederation's report says that online booking could soon become the default option for making appointments in primary and secondary care, and that patients will manage medications and personal health budgets with systems linked to their electronic medical records. Meanwhile, public health authorities could detect potential outbreaks of illness by "monitoring patterns of digital behaviour" such as a surge of people looking up the same symptoms on the internet.
However the confederation says that the NHS today lags behind the public sector as a whole in its use of electronic channels, with only 7% of contacts between clinicians and patients taking place online. Heavy reliance on face-to-face interactions "should be recognized as an indiscriminate approach", the confederation says. The report says that "for an increasing proportion of the population, access to and participation in healthcare is actually obstructed by the lack of remote channels on offer" and that "Failing to develop ways to reach out electronically risks disastrous consequences for the long term health of a large section of society."
The report claims that development of digital health tools has been "stifled" by incorrect assumptions about what patients want. "Although there are often valid reasons for resisting the introduction of certain tools... much of the lack of progress goes against the interests of patients." A major cause of inaction, the "pervasive uncertainty" about the safety and legality of electronic health networks, can be overcome, the confederation says.
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Quelle/Source: UKauthorITy, 20.01.2011
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