eHealth updates - 18 April 2013

New policy, guidance and e-health initiatives from across the UK. For more information about the e-health theme see Quality and Safety eBulletin: ehealth.

Some of the resources linked to are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

BMC Health Services Research: Telephone consultations in place of face to face out-patient consultations for patients discharged from hospital following surgery: a systematic review. Routine follow-up following uncomplicated surgery is being delivered by telephone in some settings. Telephone consultations may be preferable to patients and improve outpatient resource use. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of telephone consultations with face to face follow-up consultations, in patients discharged from hospital following surgery.

BMC Medical Informatics & Decision Making: Safety Assurance Factors for Electronic Health Record Resilience (SAFER): study protocol. “Implementation and use of electronic health records (EHRs) could lead to potential improvements in quality of care. However, the use of EHRs also introduces unique and often unexpected patient safety risks. Proactive assessment of risks and vulnerabilities can help address potential EHR-related safety hazards before harm occurs; however, current risk assessment methods are underdeveloped. The overall objective of this project is to develop and validate proactive assessment tools to ensure that EHR-enabled clinical work systems are safe and effective.”

DH: NHS 111 Minimum Data Set – February Release. In February, there were 218,144 calls to the 111 service, with 82% of these calls from people directly dialling 111. Scaled up, this would represent 13.2 million calls per year across England to the NHS 111 service. For the period between April 2011 to October 2012, 92% of callers were very or fairly satisfied with their NHS111 experience.

Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR): Adherence to a Smartphone Application for Weight Loss Compared to Website and Paper Diary: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. There is growing interest in the use of information communication technologies to treat obesity. An intervention delivered by smartphone could be a convenient, potentially cost-effective, and wide-reaching weight management strategy. The aim of this pilot study was to collect acceptability and feasibility outcomes of a self-monitoring weight management intervention delivered by a smartphone app, compared to a website and paper diary.

JMIR: Attitudes of Patients Toward Adoption of 3D Technology in Pain Assessment: Qualitative Perspective. Past research has revealed that insufficient pain assessment could, and often, has negative implications on the provision of quality health care. The purpose of this analysis was to describe qualitative findings from a study which was designed to explore patients’ perceptions of adopting 3D technology in the assessment of their pain experience related to important themes that might positively or negatively influence the quality of the pain assessment process.

NHS England: Electronic Prescription Service (EPS): Authorisation of prescribers to enable EPS Release 2. From 1 April 2013 NHS England are responsible for authorising prescribing contractors to use the Electronic Prescription Service. This responsibility is included in paragraph 39A of Schedule 6 of the GMS Contract Regulations.