Some personal reflections on using information in the NHS: then, now and
tomorrow
Alaric Cundy, formerly Director of Clinical Information at Barts
and The London NHS Trust, hopes that, as the enablers for turning data into
knowledge are nearly all in place, payment by results will soon be expressed
in terms of benefits that patients gain from NHS interventions rather than
in terms of which interventions were carried out, regardless of outcomes.
ABSTRACT
Set in the context of the payment-by-results initiative, this personal
review covers early attempts to measure healthcare outcomes and delays in
patients’ journeys, with some of the work dating back more than 40 years. It
discusses why those ideas have not been adopted and whether the barriers
that prevented their adoption are now being dismantled. It concludes by
suggesting that the framework is coming into place to enable the development
of a genuine payment-by-results culture rather than the more accurately
labelled ‘payment by what we did’ ethos.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2007; 24(3): 15–17 |
