Transcript GroupAeHealth

Ehealth
Group A – Andrew McNaught,
Konrad Borowiecki, James
Wilson, Xi Chen
Introduction
• What is Ehealth?
Healthcare practise supported by electronic
processes and communication
• Examples
EMR (Electronic Medical Records)
Telemedicine
Virtual healthcare teams
What will we talk about
• James
NHS spine
• Andrew
Impact of online pharmacy
What will we talk about
• Konrad
Virtual health care
• Chen
Telemedicine
James - EMR
• NHS Spine
National Central Database to store over 50 million
records accessible by up to 250000 NHS staff
Part of £12 Billion IT programme for NHS
James - EMR
• NHS Spine benefits
Records to be collected from GP practises
Cradle to grave patient records
Central database will be accessed anywhere in NHS
Paper based records creating waiting times for access
Statistical analysis can be run on the database
James - EMR
• NHS Spine privacy concerns
Records reported to be uploaded without
patient consent according to Guardian Unlimited
Information could be accessed by
Police and security services for details on
Mental illnesses
HIV status
Drug taking
James - EMR
• NHS Spine privacy concerns
Opt out rights given according to NHS
option sealed electronic envelope
GP representatives urge NHS spine boycott
National program for IT won award for “Most Appalling
Project” in Privacy Internationals UK big brother 2004
awards
Andrew - Online Pharmacy
• Since around 1999 many Internet pharmacies
established worldwide
• Can be part of click-and-mortar operations, or stand
alone online presences
• Health concerns 6th most common reason people go
online
• Many exist that require a doctor’s prescription, however
many do not
• Dozens of online pharmacies in Canada, mainly to
service US citizens who pay highest drug prices in the
world
• Benefits? Problems?
Andrew - Online Pharmacy Benefits
• Offers the consumer more privacy
• Is more convenient especially for homebound
and disabled people
• Can be cheaper than at traditional pharmacies
• Ease of comparative shopping across many
sites
• Easier and quicker access to product information
and references to other sources of information
Andrew - Online Pharmacy Problems
• Some online pharmacies selling prescription drugs
without a prescription
• Fraudulent claims – “cure for cancer!” , “within 30 days
you can experience growth of 3 inches!”
• Deception – e.g. was shown Herbal medications could
not be sold profitably without deception
• Anonymity – no doctor-patient relationship. Leads to lack
of ethical concern among online pharmacies
• Profit minded affiliate sites – only care about making a
profit not about the quality of their information
• Privacy issues due to possibility of hacking
• Legal and cross-border issues
• Spam – 10 – 12% is health related
Konrad - Virtual healthcare –
knowledge database
• e-health sites are being used as knowledge
base by people
– 95% (88/93) of families characterized the information
as very helpful in furthering the understanding of their
child’s heart defect
• Doctors knowledge database
– medical consultations over the internet
– doctors cooperation so called virtual health care
teams
Konrad - Virtual healthcare
agents
• Implementation of e-healthcare into computer
platforms, so called healthcare agents
– some are desktop applications reminding to take a
drug in time,
– some are clients allowing to use internet knowledge
database to personalize the information to help the
user to examine himself
– or applications designed especially to reduces the
burden on doctors and help to better understand the
patients condition
Konrad - Virtual healthcare –
additional advantages
• In home-healthcare
– to care patients sick on complex and chronic illnesses
or contagious diseases
• Patient care in distant, isolated regions
• Surgery through the internet
– Scientists in Australia have used internet to
successfully perform microsurgery on cells located
thousands of miles away in a southern California
laboratory
Konrad - Virtual healthcare -
pitfalls
”If I had to single out a single factor that is
critical to the whole movement of
healthcare to an online environment, it
would have to be TRUST.”
Dr Richard Darby
Konrad - Virtual healthcare -
conclusions
The increase of the computer influence in
our lives is unstoppable and it is
happening now and it is up to us to
implement it in proper and thoughtful
way.
Chen - Telemedicine
• What is Telemedicine:
The application of telecommunications
technology to health care, requires the
integration of technology, tools and training
with medical care practices and problems.
Chen - Telemedicine
• Telemedicine is practiced on the basis of two
concepts:
Real time (synchronous)
store-and-forward (asynchronous).
Chen - Telemedicine
• Telemedicine in UK
Start in 1991
NHS Direct Online
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/
TEIS - UK Telemedicine and E-health
Information Service
http://www.tis.bl.uk/