Investments in Electronic Health Records

The health sector in the UK has made massive investments in Electronic Health Records (EHR). Without those investments in the infrastructure that facilitates patient care we would have poorer quality care. That infrastructure and those records is of immense value and it can be further leveraged to improve care.

The original vision for the Spine database was to create an epidemiological powerhouse that would enable greater understanding of and research into disease. The demise of the Connecting For Health programme does not need to mean that objective cannot be pursued.

We can utilise bridges between the various EHR silos to enable research that targets disease, improves recruitment to clinical trials and accelerates the therapeutic pipeline. The Salford Lung Study has shown how this can be done while respecting the highest ethical standards, protecting the anonymity of patients and returning value to the NHS and GSK.

At a time when resources are ever more precious and when the burden of disease is increasing, all of us should explore opportunities to increase resources and to accelerate new therapeutics. At Ignite Data we are working with a significant proportion of the NHS to bring this about and we would be happy to explain further how this can be done.

Patients are at the centre of everything we do. At King’s I always found it most heartwarming when patients facing the enormity of their diagnosis volunteered their time and their material to participate in research for the future benefit of others. I joined the board of Ignite Data because I know we can enable more of those patients across the country to participate in these endeavours and I know we can help NHS organisations benefit further from the infrastructure in which they have invested over many years.