Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 61 replies
  • Subscribers 14 subscribers
  • Views 4196 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Is technology killing the NHS?

Arran Cameron
I'm sorry if this comes across as pessimistic but I believe that the NHS will die unless seriously intelligent reforms are made to it. These reforms will probably not be possible because of inertia in the system. What happened to Stafford Hospital is a snapshot of what will come to other NHS trusts.


When the NHS was established in the 1940s, technology in hospitals was far simpler. In many cases medical procedures were carried out using simple hand tools. The most complicated piece of equipment in a hospital was probably an X-Ray machine. A modern hospital contains tens of thousands of pieces of advanced machinery.


This costs a large amount of money to buy.

This costs a large amount of money to maintain and service.

This costs a large amount of money to provide staff training.


The amount of money spent by hospitals on advanced medical devices and IT equipment keeps increasing year after year and is a substantial part of the NHS budget.


If this isn't bad enough in itself, the NHS is not very good when it comes to using and deploying technology due to its cumbersome and antiquated management structure along with the mentality of a high proportion of its staff. The NHS is clearly not a visionary and progressive organisation.


Only a small fraction of medical devices are specifically designed for the NHS. A high proportion of them are off the shelf products primarily designed for the US healthcare market.


The situation is marginally better with software although NHS IT projects are known to have been expensive disasters.


Therefore, is technology killing the NHS?
Parents
  • 0
    I have received a bit of inside information about medical engineering departments in hospitals.


    Back in the 1980s most cars only had rudimentary electrical systems – such as lights and windscreen wipers – so they could be repaired by mechanics with only hand tools and a multimeter. Modern cars have advanced electronic systems and require the use of advanced test equipment or computer software to identify faults or reconfigure electronic modules. Therefore a modern day car mechanic must have an understanding of the electronic systems on cars and the hardware and software tools required for servicing, fault diagnosis, and reconfiguration.


    Medical devices have also advanced in the same way since the 1980s and many now require specialised hardware and software tools for servicing, fault diagnosis, and reconfiguration, but a sizeable fraction of techs today still have the 1980s mindset and have not advanced beyond hand tools and a multimeter. The situation is often more acute amongst medical engineering managers than techs, as most of them generally aren't very computer or software savvy. Conflicts of interests may break out between certain techs who want to seriously embrace specialist hardware and software tools and managers who do not understand them or the benefits they provide.


    To further complicate the matter is where medical devices are networked or used in conjunction with PCs, as this requires IT and software knowledge in addition to medical device hardware knowledge. Hospital IT departments predominantly deal with computer hardware and software used in office type settings, so their IT techs have limited knowledge of medical devices and their associated software. It's not uncommon for 'finger pointing' to take place between medical engineering techs / managers and IT techs / managers over who has the responsibility for issues surrounding networked medical devices or PCs used in conjunction with medical devices.
Reply
  • 0
    I have received a bit of inside information about medical engineering departments in hospitals.


    Back in the 1980s most cars only had rudimentary electrical systems – such as lights and windscreen wipers – so they could be repaired by mechanics with only hand tools and a multimeter. Modern cars have advanced electronic systems and require the use of advanced test equipment or computer software to identify faults or reconfigure electronic modules. Therefore a modern day car mechanic must have an understanding of the electronic systems on cars and the hardware and software tools required for servicing, fault diagnosis, and reconfiguration.


    Medical devices have also advanced in the same way since the 1980s and many now require specialised hardware and software tools for servicing, fault diagnosis, and reconfiguration, but a sizeable fraction of techs today still have the 1980s mindset and have not advanced beyond hand tools and a multimeter. The situation is often more acute amongst medical engineering managers than techs, as most of them generally aren't very computer or software savvy. Conflicts of interests may break out between certain techs who want to seriously embrace specialist hardware and software tools and managers who do not understand them or the benefits they provide.


    To further complicate the matter is where medical devices are networked or used in conjunction with PCs, as this requires IT and software knowledge in addition to medical device hardware knowledge. Hospital IT departments predominantly deal with computer hardware and software used in office type settings, so their IT techs have limited knowledge of medical devices and their associated software. It's not uncommon for 'finger pointing' to take place between medical engineering techs / managers and IT techs / managers over who has the responsibility for issues surrounding networked medical devices or PCs used in conjunction with medical devices.
Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines