Chelsea and Westminster pilot e-Health platform
NHS patients could soon have complete control over their medical records and the power to decide who has access to their data. A pilot underway at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London is using cloud computing to make communications between patient, consultant and GP faster and more efficient. Researchers at Chelsea and Westminster are working with Edinburgh Napier University to show how the current paper-based system could be replaced with a next-generation e-Health platform. After 18 months in development, with the cloud integration work provided free by Flexiant, the E-Health Cloud is now ready to be tested and a demonstrator will go live on the Flexiscale public cloud next month. Professor Bill Buchanan of Edinburgh Napier University said: "The current infrastructure in the UK often has a non-integrated approach to patient care, where data is not used effectively between GP, hospital and assisted living. Our system allows for data to be stored with its context, such as where it was captured, and then used in whatever way is necessary through well-managed clinical services. Security is integrated into every single transaction, and we host it on Flexiant's cloud to give us a scaleable and robust e-Health infrastructure." In future the project could be used to integrate all phases of health care treatment, from assisted living to primary and secondary healthcare, so the same data can be used throughout.
