Next year I want
in the out of hours centre, a computer on which I can call up my
practice system, and safely use the notes of my patients.
to be able to enable trusted colleagues to do the same with my practice
system, and them to enable me to do the same (when I was a trainee we
had keys to the surgeries in the rota. Rarely used, but in principle
we could obtain the notes of the patient we were seeing for a
colleague, subject to the security controls then regarded as
appropriate.)
to be able to use my PC at home to call up the practice system, using a
connection whose cost does not noticeably depend upon the amount of
information I pass over it, and to do on that system anything I can do
from my desk in the practice. (But not necessarily anything I can do
from the server console in the practice)
to be able to do the same at the branch surgery, with my laptop.
to be able to e-mail my friends, or view their websites in the wild
woolly web, at the same time as I read a patient's record
my daughter to be able to browse the web for clarinet music, chemistry
or something to do with horses, none of which I take to be priority
components of the resources to be available on NHS Net.
to display to my patients and colleagues the practice's existence, some
indication of its working philosophy and the services on offer, and in
due course to permit my patients to dial in, identify themselves, and
use the practice software to directly order their prescriptions,
enquire after test results, leave messages and otherwise behave in the
way that banks have for some time allowed us to with their ATM machines
In short, to have a single connection to a pervasive network which
allows me to do my work wherever I am, and which is safe against
malignant colleagues or other members of the NHS Family and Friends
hacking in, they being far more likely to be interested than A Random
Hacker from outside, or against one member of the million managing to
foul up on the security policy.
How to Approach it
------------------------
The technology of the Internet is the way to go. This is a moving
target to be sure, but adopting it as standard allows us to move with
it.
The key virtues of the Internet are the common platform for
communication and other services such as Telnet which are also
important, and the simple fact that it connects everybody or anybody.
To abandon this in favour of a landlocked backwater would only make
sense if it satisfied the needs and wishes of the users.
The proposed solution is not satisfactory, even provided free to GPs it
will represent poorer value than could be achieved more easily by
listening to the users.
The NHS has the opportunity here to make a major computer project work,
something which it has far too frequently in the past managed to turn
into a defeat snatched ingeniously from the jaws of victory. This one
is the big one guys, concentrate.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|