Re: First of all
It's the same for GP's, all on different systems. Centralise IT at least and half these problems will go away, surely?
GPs will be on one of four clinical systems. EMIS has over half the market. Add SystmOne and you are over 90%. The other two are fighting over the scraps. Regardless, that's hardly "all different systems" and yes, they all interoperate to a greater or lesser extent.
Having seen this at health authority and at national level I concluded most of the problems are cultural rather than technological, in particular the obsession with confidentiality.
GPs can't directly see the spine entries for their own patients, they can't even look up their NHS numbers for themselves but are instead dependant on the health authority or primary care support services.
Even then, up until around the millennium NHS numbers were not national at all but allocated independently by each local health authority. Move between authorities and you'd get a new NHS number. Even now, with "national" NHS numbers and at the level of national administration, those within NHS England can't see the records of NHS Scotland and vice versa and so on.
All this adds up to a lot of scope for data mismatches and duplicate accounts: it is a wonder systems like GP2GP (which transfers computer records between practices) work at all.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
