By Tony Hallett, 17 August 2006 16:15
COMMENT
Responding to a recent post, a reader told me I was wrong to refer to 'Luddite clinicians'. I stand by that phrase but do hasten to point out I wasn't trying to say all clinicians in the NHS are Luddites, thankfully. I was just saying there are some.
Given that, it is great to see our story today about the Royal Hospitals in Belfast using wi-fi in innovative ways. The whole initiative is award-nominated and, more importantly, delivering tangible benefits to staff and patients - though as our leader points out, it is slightly ironic that the Northern Ireland jurisdiction prevents us in this case talking about a Connecting for Health success.
Still, we will. I received an email just minutes ago from University Hospitals of Leicester, trumpeting the fact its "new-look website" has become one of the most popular of its kind in the UK. (See this page.)
My point is simple. If healthcare providers, particularly the NHS, do something worth shouting about... shout about it. There are those who stand up time and time again and talk about how the media ignores all the good work in IT going on in this space. That's rubbish. But sometimes it's tough feeding on scraps.
Gotta run tonight. silicon.com is one of the hosts of a charity rounders match (yes, rounders - I know, don't ask) in Hyde Park, all ultimately for Computer Aid International.
But I just have time to say, look out for the Weekly Round-Up newsletter which will go out tomorrow lunchtime. It's got the usual fix of tech's silly side - but did you know there is also a Round-Up page with some funny odds and sods and links to past weeks' missives?
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1. anonymous
The reason that the NHS in England does not shout about its successes is that their IT activity is dominated by Connecting for Health, and the latter has had no significant successes whatever, despite spending/wasting obscene amounts of taxpayers' money. What success there is in IT in the NHS in England is occurring despite Connecting for Health, not because of it.