The Very Latest Health IT "Glitch" - Britsh MP Says No to Cerner

It's just a glitch:

Bacon calls for halt on Millennium
e-Health Insider.com
19 January 2012

Conservative MP Richard Bacon has called for a halt to all Cerner Millennium deployments following appointment problems and delays at the latest trusts to go-live with the system - North Bristol and Oxford.

Bacon, who has followed the progress of the National Programme for IT in the NHS [NPfIT - ed.] for many years, said the two hospitals had been “brought to their knees” by the implementation of the new electronic patient record system.

“These deployments need to be stopped until we are sure that they can be managed safely,” he said; adding that the system should be "switched off" if it was not working for patients.

North Bristol NHS Trust and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust said they are working through some deployment issues, but denied that patient safety has been compromised.

[There's that 'safety has not been compromised by major IT system disruptions' line again - see here - ed.]

However, Oxford University Hospitals told eHealth Insider that it has had to bring in extra staff to help it overcome some “temporary problems while the new system beds in.”

Bacon said local news reports indicated that the trust was having serious difficulties booking patients in for treatment.

The Oxford Mail has reported that problems were so bad before Christmas that the trust had to suspend its parking charges as clinics over-ran by hours.

... Bacon, who was instrumental in triggering last year’s National Audit Office and Commons’ public accounts committee inquiries into the programme, said the NHS should never have been locked into buying software that was “unreliable” and “unreasonably expensive."

“Effective, affordable and robust IT systems are vital to the future of the NHS, but it is clear that the fiasco that is the national programme cannot deliver them,” he said this morning.

He called for “a halt” to new Cerner Millennium deployments, including that at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which is being undertaken by BT as the local service provider for London, and that at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, which went outside the national programme more than two years ago.

[More typical hospital executive-style excuses and spin control follow]

Readers, I won't bore you with the rest of the excuses, pleadings for special accommodation, etc. You've heard them all already on this blog.

However you can read them at the link above if you so desire.

-- SS

Physician Phollies ~ II: Dr. William "Wheat Belly" Davis

Next up in our "how can he/she even say that?" series of blatantly erroneous things said by practicing physicians in furtherance of the carbophobic agenda ...

I bring you, an Asylum favorite, Dr. William "Wheat Belly" Davis.  In the most recent post on his WB blog, Wheat Belly trips over himself trying to implicate wheat, specifically, in the diabetes epidemic.  

But can we blame diabetes on wheat?
Yes, absolutely, as much as you can blame poor oral hygience for toothlessness in West Virginia.

Wow!  Gratuitous slam on WVa's aside, Dr. Wee Bee goes on  to list all the ways wheat causes diabetes:

–Any food that increases blood sugar to high levels (i.e., high glycemic index) also increases insulin to high levels. Repetitive high insulin leads to insulin resistance, which leads to visceral fat deposition, more insulin resistance, inflammation, etc., eventuating in diabetes.
–High blood sugar, such as that resulting from eating two slices of whole wheat bread, is toxic to pancreatic beta cells, the cells that produce insulin: glucotoxicity.
–Triglyceride-containing lipoproteins, such as chylomicrons and its remnants, are toxic to pancreatic beta cells: lipotoxicity.

Read more »

this morning my 18 month old walked up to me and said "baby poo poo"....which translates into: i threw taylor's baby into the toilet....
and a happy thursday to you too :)

*images courtesy of sacramento street, shades of gray, tim barber ltd, pinterest

The Team Behind the Team - Dr Joy Bringer

The Team Behind the Team – Dr Joy Bringer

Dr Joy Bringer, CPsychol, is an HPC-Registered Sport Psychologist, working full-time with elite athletes and coaches at Sport Wales in Cardiff.

A Chartered Psychologist, Joy is accredited to the High Performance Sport level with the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences and in her role has travelled to Athens and Beijing supporting British Paralympians, and to Melbourne and Delhi as a sport psychologist for Wales’ Commonwealth Games Team.

Joy says;

“I have been working at Sport Wales as a Senior Psychologist since 2003, helping elite athletes and their coaches train and perform better. When I start working with a sport, athlete or coach, we will go through a process of a ‘needs analysis’ where we will identify areas where improvements might be made. This could include teaching skills such as goal setting, refocusing strategies, imagery, and managing emotions.”

Joy continues:

“I work within a team of sport scientists and sports medicine providers, so whenever possible I link in with the other support staff. For example, if an athlete wants to improve concentration during competition, the performance nutritionist will work with the athlete to develop an appropriate nutrition plan for competition days, and I will help the athlete with refocusing strategies.”

Five members of staff from the Sport Wales Institute are being followed by BBC Radio Wales to look at the work going on behind the scenes in the build up to London 2012.

Find out more about Joy Bringer and the work she does with Welsh athletes; her interview is at roughly 2hr 50 into the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019h45x/Good_Morning_Wales_19_01_2012/