Scottish eHealth Board plans £145 million programme:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Scotland's eHealth Programme Board held its first meeting today (October 20 2003) to discuss how best to apply information technology to the development of healthcare. Planned initiatives include patient information systems, including the Integrated Care Records programme, and improved information-sharing links between hospitals and general practices. All GPs are to be linked to hospitals, such as to have online access to the results of pathology tests sent to hospital laboratories, said Scottish health minister Malcolm Chisholm, chairing today's meeting. Only 500 practices - around half the total - currently have that link, he said. Scotland has committed £145m ($242m) over four years to the programme, rising from £26m in 2002-03, to £48.7m in 2005-06.