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To put a finer point on it: it may be easier for doctors to find your hard drive and decrypt it in some cases that than to go through and extract them from anot

To put a finer point on it: it may be easier for doctors to find your hard drive and decrypt it in some cases that than to go through and extract them from another medical provider's EHR system. I say this only partly tongue-in-cheek.

kjakm 6y ago
The article is about the NHS though so hospitals and doctors all access the same system/are all the same “medical provider”.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  Not really. Hospitals don't talk to each other properly, GPs don't talk to each other. I've been asked to bring blood test results in paper from my GP to a specialist clinic because they couldn't work out how to get them emailed over - and it is essentially various forms of email that much exchange does happen over. An "integrated system" has been something the NHS has been sinking money into for decades and getting nowhere with.
  - walshemj 6y ago
    Amen its normal if you cross NHS trust's for more complex cases. I cant go to my local hospital for some of my tests (post transplant related) which is 30 mns away by bus instead I have to go to another hospital which by public transport will take an entire day.
- DanBC 6y ago
  No, that's not correct. A while ago we had (these numbers keep changing as the organisations merge). 207 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) 135 acute non-specialist trusts (including 84 foundation trusts), 17 acute specialist trusts (including 16 foundation trusts), 54 mental health trusts (including 42 foundation trusts), 35 community providers (11 NHS trusts, 6 foundation trusts, 17 social enterprises and 1 limited company), 10 ambulance trusts (including 5 foundation trusts), and 7,454 GP practices. The CCGs take money from NHS England and they commission services from local provider organisations. Those organisations don't have to be NHS Trusts (I think it's still law that CCGs are forbidden from having a preference for NHS Trusts). NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts are independent organisations. They have their own board of directors and non-executive directors. Foundation Trusts do to, and they have additional responsibilities to their members. In Gloucestershire we have one CCG, one acute hospitals trust, one trust that covers MH, LD, and community care, we have an ambo trust that covers the south west, and we have a local authority that commissions drug and alcohol services from non-profit orgs, and then a bunch of GP surgeries on top. This means they all make their own decision on software packages to buy, and a lot of that info is locked up in their system. While there's some commonality in software packages used (eg, lots of use of SystmOne) it's not always easy to get the information from one organisation to another. If I am diabetic and see me GP's diabetes clinic, and then I am admitted to mental health hospital, it can be hard to get my diabetes clinic notes into my MH hospital notes. I posted a twitter thread just today about an NHS organisation who employ someone to print out one database, and then to enter that information into another database. Have a read of the twitter thread, because there are a bunch of people who agree. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23426262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23426262 Inter-operability is going to be big business in the English NHS for anyone who can crack it.

kjakm 6y ago

The article is about the NHS though so hospitals and doctors all access the same system/are all the same “medical provider”.

vertex-four 6y ago
Not really. Hospitals don't talk to each other properly, GPs don't talk to each other. I've been asked to bring blood test results in paper from my GP to a specialist clinic because they couldn't work out how to get them emailed over - and it is essentially various forms of email that much exchange does happen over. An "integrated system" has been something the NHS has been sinking money into for decades and getting nowhere with.
- walshemj 6y ago
  Amen its normal if you cross NHS trust's for more complex cases. I cant go to my local hospital for some of my tests (post transplant related) which is 30 mns away by bus instead I have to go to another hospital which by public transport will take an entire day.
DanBC 6y ago
No, that's not correct. A while ago we had (these numbers keep changing as the organisations merge). 207 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) 135 acute non-specialist trusts (including 84 foundation trusts), 17 acute specialist trusts (including 16 foundation trusts), 54 mental health trusts (including 42 foundation trusts), 35 community providers (11 NHS trusts, 6 foundation trusts, 17 social enterprises and 1 limited company), 10 ambulance trusts (including 5 foundation trusts), and 7,454 GP practices. The CCGs take money from NHS England and they commission services from local provider organisations. Those organisations don't have to be NHS Trusts (I think it's still law that CCGs are forbidden from having a preference for NHS Trusts). NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts are independent organisations. They have their own board of directors and non-executive directors. Foundation Trusts do to, and they have additional responsibilities to their members. In Gloucestershire we have one CCG, one acute hospitals trust, one trust that covers MH, LD, and community care, we have an ambo trust that covers the south west, and we have a local authority that commissions drug and alcohol services from non-profit orgs, and then a bunch of GP surgeries on top. This means they all make their own decision on software packages to buy, and a lot of that info is locked up in their system. While there's some commonality in software packages used (eg, lots of use of SystmOne) it's not always easy to get the information from one organisation to another. If I am diabetic and see me GP's diabetes clinic, and then I am admitted to mental health hospital, it can be hard to get my diabetes clinic notes into my MH hospital notes. I posted a twitter thread just today about an NHS organisation who employ someone to print out one database, and then to enter that information into another database. Have a read of the twitter thread, because there are a bunch of people who agree. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23426262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23426262 Inter-operability is going to be big business in the English NHS for anyone who can crack it.