Useful ICD 9 tool embedded in Google

I haven't seen this before - search Google for ICD 9

Computerising the NHS needs more sensible debate

Michael Cross: Computerising the NHS needs more sensible debate | Technology | The Guardian

Google Health Launches

Google Health Launches

Microsoft To Advance Its Search

Look out for announcements this week - John Batelle Microsoft To Advance Its Search

A service that worked

and hopefully will continue to - Further feedback on the demise of Q&A

Systems thinking in the public sector

I'm reading Systems thinking in the public sector by John Seddon, and its a good read so far. The account of the DWP Verification Framework is new to me. Here's a quote:

If the Council Tax officers are working to service standards (very likely) they too will have learned that sendinging something somewhere (rather than actually completing the work) is often the best way to survive in this system.

Certainly true from the experience of a relative of mine recently.

Microshoft Mesh

Joel Spolsky: Architecture astronauts take over

Semantic search - killer app... or not?

Should the semantic web be able to improve search? Some say yes , some say no. It would be handy if it was, because then there would be a real world yardstick to measure the added value of semantic web technologies.

More on Healthspace

5.2.11. Against the above six criteria, HealthSpace scores somewhat differently:
a. The perceived relative advantage of HealthSpace is much lower than that of the
SCR (a common comment by patients and staff was “I can’t see the point of it”).
b. In its present iteration, HealthSpace is also complex – a feature largely
attributable to the tight security measures (which may be difficult to change).
c. It is not overly compatible with existing values and ways of working (but see
Discussion, paragraph 7.3.8.).
d. The observability of HealthSpace’s benefits remains to be demonstrated, since
this attribute concerns whether patients will perceive a worthwhile impact when
they use the technology themselves.
e. One strength of HealthSpace is that once registration hurdles are overcome, it is
easily trialable.
f. Another potential strength is that there are plans for patients to be able to
customise (‘reinvent’) HealthSpace to their own preferences and needs.

On Healthspace

Page 13 of the report:

We suggest that the NPfIT National Programme Board consider uncoupling
HealthSpace from the SCR programme. In the view of the evaluation team,
stakeholders in HealthSpace should prioritise optimising the design and use of this
technology in specific, clearly-defined use scenarios (e.g. supporting self-care in one
14
or two chronic conditions) before attempting to offer it to NHS patients more
generally. To this end, partnerships with patient organisations and voluntary sector
groups (which are already in place and being further developed) are strongly
encouraged.

Evaluating NPfIT

Trish Greenhalgh on her experience of evaluating the NPfIT Summary Care Record:

An early finding of this evaluation was that many stakeholders tended to polarise
these tensions into simplistic and morally absolute dualisms (‘bad’ central control versus
‘good’ local emergence; ‘bad’ technical designers versus ‘good’ caring clinicians, and so on),
and demonise what they characterised as the ‘other side’. These entrenched positions
preclude effective dialogue. It is time to move on from them.

Report here