bmj.com at 20 years
BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h2821 (Published 26 May 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;350:h2821
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The justifiably proud record of the BMJ in embracing 21st-century IT to optimise its availability to a worldwide audience, in so many aspects of medical news and research, stands in stark contrast to the woeful experience of so many NHS practitioners in their day jobs. The fragmentation of IT systems within hospitals, between hospitals and the community (including hospices) and between hospitals only a few miles apart have caused endless frustrations to those of us trying to provide a 'seamless' service to patients. Patients on the receiving end, often with their state-of-the-art smartphones at the ready, cannot begin to understand why we still have to phone GP surgeries, send 2nd-class letters, write prescriptions on paper pads, and have no idea of the results of tests they have already had done at St Elsewhere's. If private businesses employed similar archaic IT systems, they would collapse within weeks.
The need for 24/7 health service access would be dramatically reduced if NHS IT systems were aligned nationwide. This would give beleaguered A+E staff a realistic prospect of doing what they are meant to do - seeing genuine accidents and emergencies. And maybe doctors would not be so desperate to retire early or emigrate . Could David Payne and the IT whizzes at the BMJ help their colleagues at the NHS coalface?
BMJ 2015;350:h2767
Competing interests: No competing interests
Could the NHS ever emulate the BMJ this century?
Dear Mary,
Thank you for your kind words, which I will pass on to my technical colleagues both at BMJ and HighWire press. Our lead developer Daniel Berhane features in the accompanying audio interview, along with Tony Horrocks, who designed the first site and updated it each week.
Interestingly Daniel talked about open source, and I recently heard Richard Iefferson, head of programme commissioning at NHS England, talk about how the NHS hopes to embrace this more.
I also attended The Wired Health event and listened to NHS England's National Clinical Director for Innovation, Tony Young, talk about how the NHS can become a 'silicon valley' for health.
It will be interesting to see how the NHS embeds technlogical development and innovation under their leadership.
Competing interests: No competing interests