back to article NHS digital pens: The 'Total Solution'

An NHS procurement organisation has tendered for the first framework contract for the supply of digital pen technology, making it available to the wider public sector. Solent Supplies Team (SST), which provides a procurement service for a group of NHS trusts on the south coast, has said it wants provide a "total digital pen …

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  1. Anonymous Dutch Coward
    Headmaster

    Which one?

    "up and coming proven technologies"

    Which one is it? If it's proven presumably it has either ascended or come, possibly left already. If up and coming.... a marketeer could call it proven, certainly. Whether real people would is a different story.

  2. Robert E A Harvey

    Tosh and Twoddle

    I anticipate another government funded IT fiasco in the making.

    Popcorn, Beer, comfy chair.

  3. A. Lewis
    Coat

    Hmmmm

    Given the legendary standard of most Doctor's handwriting, this should be an interesting challenge for the manufacturers of digital pens.

    Also: a new NHS IT project! Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, on how long before this will be scrapped and how much money it will waste in the process.

    My bet: 6 months, £3.2 million.

    1. John G Imrie

      My bet

      I think you are out on the cash by two orders of magnitude.

      6 Years £320m

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Also...

      Nurses, healthcare assistants, Pharmacists, pharmacy assisstants (and to some extent the general public) in my experience.

      Rush something and the quality of the writing suffers.

      Rush it when it's important and other things can suffer.

      1. trickysarg
        Thumb Up

        handwriting via digtal pens

        the solutions are carefully designed

        handwriting recognition don't get me wrong can be tricky, but when i design the maternity notes we use a large amount off tick boxes, combed boxes

        questions with yes/no tick boxes, this give you 100 accuracy on the questions, ideal for clinical questions

        Combed boxes for NHS number, but when setting it up, you program the box, so it is expecting a number, it know its a "5" not an "S"

        free notes fields are tricky, but average about a 92% accuracy, but you are able to edit and verify before entering into clinical systems if needed

        you are able to upload, clinical dictionaries, medication terms into the dictionary this all help with the accuracy

  4. Graham Bartlett
    Pirate

    Tuesday morning eyes

    Must be the reason I originally read that as Soylent Supplies Team...

    (Those aren't swords, they're steak knives.)

  5. Mos Eisley Spaceport
    Flame

    Load up the guerneys (trolleys) with tax payers money

    Roll then straight to the crematorium.

    Burn it.

    May as well cut out the middle-man.

    Same result, but it's saves time.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Load up the cynics

    The digipen concept has been around the NHS for some considerable time, its not really costing them a great deal of cash as the vendors are all swallowing the development costs in the hope they can convince the trusts to take up the technology full time, its working as well, last person i spoke to with a digipen loved it! The handwriting recognition is improving in leaps and bounds to the point it can even read mine!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What model?

      I've appalling handwriting and would love a digipen that works - any recommendations?

  7. OffBeatMammal

    Livescribe

    so... some procurement agency is going to spend many thousands of pounds to discover the only real solution is something like the Livescribe Echo but the NHS will end up paying several times over the odds for them and the appropriate paper and a botched implementation.

    I love my Livescribe (ironically it was my vet who showed it to me first)... it's not perfect but if you're careful the OCR works reasonably well

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Graffiti???

    Ow come on, my palm m130 was not that hard to use with Graffiti.

    And it got better with daily usage. Not to mention my handwriting downright s**ks.

    If the WHOLE screen could be used, then....

    In the lack of "old geezer" icon...

  9. Anon NHS IT flunkey
    Thumb Down

    You can say one thing for the NHS...

    they'll seemingly do anything to keep pushing paper! There are already transcription services and tablets and all manner of OCR scanning technologies available, invested in, and in use in the NHS. Do we really need another?

    I give it six months after implementation before someone loses a (no doubt unencrypted) pen with patient notes still stored on it.

    1. trickysarg

      its all about managing change

      the pen is an ideal solution for the transition to a full electronic patient record, you can't just transfer the staff over to laptops, tablets etc.. it will fail almost immediately

      you have to manage the change and take is slow, this is why so many projects within the NHS have failed, to much to quickly.

      the pen enables them to still use the paper and with the added benefit of a mobile device, access to email, appointments, information. once they are used to this then phase out the pen .

      i am all for the reduction in paper, the NHS has to be largest user of paper in the UK. You cant just give them a full electronic patient system

  10. trickysarg
    Go

    Freeing time to care

    to many NHS IT teams think the way forward it IPad, laptops or slates, why is it ?

    it is going to be years before the NHS will be ready for this technology. it still far to paper heavy, the pen gives a transition from paper to electronic patient record, it helps to adapt the staff to change.

    give the clinical staff the ability to do the job they joined the NHS to do CARE!!!, they shouldn't need to write a report on paper twice or three times, then type it into a system. Capture it once and get that information transferred into the patient system. once and once only.. this means freeing time to care

    you also need to think about the cost the pen solution its far cheaper on the capital and the recurring costs, this means getting a return on the investment far sooner than and laptop solution.

    check this link http://www.developiq.com/freeingtimetocare/

    any info please email me r.a.sargent@gmail.com i used to work in the NHS and developed the solution in Portsmouth

  11. Robert E A Harvey

    err..

    Since commenting on this item, the title appears in my el reg sidebar.

    Where I read it as 'NHS Digital Penis' out of the corner of my eye.

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