“Tories unveil NHS database plans” – BBC NEWS
The Conservatives have promised huge cost savings for the NHS by scrapping government plans for a central database of patient records. Proposals include electronic medical notes being stored locally by GPs and hospitals and patients having online access to their medical records.
IT firms such as Google or Microsoft could host the information.
But the government said the Conservatives’ plans raised concerns about patient confidentiality.
Confidentiality? Hmm… Well with the proper safety measures in place, this shouldn’t raise concerns. A central database for national healthcare records should have been a top priority years ago! Of course, taking into consideration the proper encryption of all files, it would be a great system! All patients should be able to access their healthcare records through a web portal, this information should be able to be updated by GPs, hospitals and all other healthcare institutions. Doing things this way would allow various good practices to take place:
- Detecting early and preventing widespread diseases by statistical analysis of information.
- Allowing to poll all citisens, retrieve feedback, and gather general information in an easy way.
- Establish better criteria to the flaws in the system, and address all issues to develop a better system.
The Tories are promising NHS trusts a choice of computer systems, rather than having a single one imposed.
Every patient would have a username and password and could update their records with information like blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Shadow health minister Stephen O’Brien insisted these separate systems would be “inter-operable”, allowing information to be accessed in different locations.
He said: “You want to have your data held locally and that should be with the person you trust most in the health service, which will be your GP.”
Yes, this is a good thing. Every patient should have their username and password, but a “choice” of computer systems is not an option! Inter-operable or not, the more systems are in use, the greater the possibility is of there being flaws in the transmission of data, man-in-the-middle hacking/cracking attacks, and a whole lot of other possibilities.
A single well-founded, secure, national database should be established and maintained correctly to provide the NHS and goverment with a ride range of information assets useful to the patients, the GPs and the NHS in general.
Mr O’Brien told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “We want to give patients the ability to give themselves greater control over their information.”
He added: “If we hold the data locally it’s more likely to be protected than within this massive [NHS] database…
Saying that is like figuring out that your money is more protected locally than in a bank. There always exists a possibility of a breach of information, but having the information in one single place, using one single system, means more security. The possibility of a virus infecting or cracking into the computer of a GP is much higher than the hacking of a properly secured database in a wide set of well-protected linux servers with a properly maintained firewall. Sure, there’s always DDoS, but at least there is no information breach.
via BBC NEWS | Politics | Tories unveil NHS database plans.
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