Health agencies debut Web site

The agencies involved in setting up the US National Health Information Network debuted a Web site last week designed to provide tools, information and resources for companies and public organisations seeking to conform their systems to emerging NHIN standards, reports Government Health IT.

The Web site was developed by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, the Healthcare IT Standards Panel (HITSP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Office of the National Co-ordinator for Health IT.

In an e-mail message, HITSP chairman John Halamka called the site a "starting point for providing [health IT] implementers with access to the tools and resources needed to support and test the implementation of standards-based health systems". The site contains information about NHIN initiatives, including standards, specifications and testing resources.

A large amount of money is spent on IT by the healthcare industry, and it's not just spent on CAT scanners and MRI machines, and all the usual business-type productivity software, according to Tech World.

Most of the information created in hospitals and clinics today is digital, so that means health is a major consumer of storage hardware and software. And, because digital records could otherwise be accessed too easily, it also requires security.

It was storage volumes that prompted the data production and management division of the NHS to supplement its tape library with a Quantum DXi3500 disk-based storage and de-duplication system earlier this year, says Steve Mackey, the vendor's UK sales director.

A healthcare trust in Essex has secured its network, enabling radiologists to safely and quickly access the 163 000 x-rays and scans carried out each year, reports IT Pro.

"The main problem we had was that we were unable to provide an adequately secure remote access solution to our radiologists," said Mark Large, associate director of IT at ERH. "As an NHS Trust, we cannot afford to slip up and we need maximum protection and security in our internal systems to protect patients' privacy."

To solve the problem, ERH picked Eurodata Systems to install Microsoft's Whale IAG technology, which allows secure access via broadband connections from any provider. Installed in four weeks, the service lets up to 750 users securely access the trust's own network at any time to view patient data, mail, and the picture archiving and communications system, to view digital medical scans.