[log in to unmask],Net wrote at 13:15 on 07/10/98
about "RE: Scottish 'clearing house' for prescriptions (was RE:
GPnets)":
-----------------------------
Quoted the paper in the BMJ showing that inexpensive software eaiy
matched large numbers of NHS Numbers to patients' names and
addresses, and therefore treatments, (from which one can infer many
diagnoses), cross-linking this to BA records would show up those
claiming free prescriptions....
Valuable info that, I wonder what they could get for it.
>Searching the eBMJ revealed these:-
>1.
>=====================================================
>Letters
>PACT data for dispensed drugs linked to NHS numbers are available now
>
>EDITOR The Information in Practice article by Majeed et al provided
>important insights into what can and cannot be obtained from
prescribing
>analysis and cost (PACT) data.1 Their conclusion that the addition of
the
>NHS number to prescriptions would not be feasible until all general
>practices are fully computerised, however, is incorrect. Since 1990 the
>Medicines Monitoring Unit has been adding the NHS number (formerly the
>community health number in Scotland) to all prescriptions for the
Tayside
>region of Scotland (400 000 people) and for prescriptions for selected
drugs
>covering the whole of Scotland (5.5 million people).
and for another example of trawling through databases collected for
unrelated reasons...
>2.
>We used eight independent data sources to maximise complete
ascertainment of
>cases of diabetes.
very clever stuff.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley
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