UK medical records are electronic
- IT TOPICS:Management, Privacy, Security
Larry Medina's recent post caught me eye, mostly because it covers some of the issues that are already causing problems and raised eyebrows amongst those of us in the IT community here in the UK.
As I've mentioned before, the UK is already going down that route and, depending on who you ask, the project is either going quite well or quite badly.
The key issues that Larry raises - security of the information - are just as much of a worry here. While I welcome the better exchange of information amongst the various groups (it can take weeks or months to get files and other data exchanged between hospitals and doctors here in the UK, even when they are a few hundred yards apart), it also concerns me that Joe Bloggs in Nottingham could be looking up my medical and personal history just because he's run out of real work to do.
The merging of all these systems is, though, much easier here in the UK - with a national health service (very few people have a 'private' doctor, even if they have private health insurance you still need a referral from your NHS doctor) we already have a well-based system of cooperation and government driven edicts to drive nationwide practices.
That doesn,'t, however, make me any more comfortable about the prospect. Especially when you consider the information and organizations with which they are willing to exchange information for the forthcoming identity cards.
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