Siemens AG has reorganized itself in readiness to attack the estimated 1bn pound annual budget for new technology infrastructure in National Health Service hospitals in the UK. Siemens Healthcare Services Limited is a new company which puts all of Siemens existing activities in the healthcare arena (already taking a one fifth share of the market) under one roof. The company aims to provide what it calls Managed Technology Services to NHS Trust hospitals; a more holistic approach to managing technology, which newly appointed managing director John Kane says the health service has been crying out for months. Siemens Healthcare will offer NHS Trust Hospitals the full range of services ranging from the outsourcing and digitization of paper-based patient records to full hospital design and build projects. There are currently 415 NHS hospitals trusts in the UK, the majority of which have creaking and ancient IT hardware, all of which operates in isolation from other departments. Kane feels that the supply of modern networking infrastructure and the computerization of existing patient record systems, including X-rays and other graphical information, will revolutionize hospital care. In one NHS site where Siemens had been invited to quote for services, consultants documenting the flow of paper based information around the hospital found no less than 46 separate storage sites for patient records, from which any clinician in the building was entitled to take folders. Is it any wonder that nobody can ever find your file?
