Do hospital computer systems link up?
No. This is especially relevant for CKD patients who are usually being looked after by different groups of doctors, in different hospitals, as well as their GP.
Key points
- The NHS is very big, perhaps too big. The biggest employer in Europe, 5th biggest in the world. This is a big part of the problem
- Hospital (and other NHS) IT systems don’t link up
- They should
- They could (Amazon do it, internationally and nationally .. there isn’t a County Something-shire Amazon)
- Its worse than this .. most hospital computers are not linked to other parts of the NHS, e.g. your GP or pharmacist (where it would be useful to share knowledge)
- They may do (one day, don’t hold your breath).
Different hospitals
With very few exceptions .. different hospital computer systems do not link up.
Consequences (examples .. there are many others)
1. If you see a hospital specialist at a bigger teaching hospital further away and a specialist at a smaller local hospital, they will not know what the other is doing (or even their name) or tests they are doing; this can easily lead to mistakes especially related to prescribing
2. This is why hospital doctors will (infuriatingly) often ask you to have blood tests etc at their (distant) hospital (10+ miles away and nightmare expensive parking) when its alot easier to walk to your local pharmacist. Why? If this is not done, the doctor requesting your test will not be told its done, or be able to see the result and act on it
3. If you are admitted to one hospital and then another (even if its nearby) the teams will not know why you have just been admitted somewhere else, what the diagnosis and treatment was, and what tablets you were sent home on. They will probably have changed these.
What you can do to help
There are things you can do to help. And, yes, it is partly your responsibility to act as the glue in the system, when you know information is not shared.
- Move house [“joking” CKDEx Ed]. Actually its not such a crazy idea. People that live nearer the big teaching hospitals (usually) get alot less IT problems than people that live in more rural border areas
- Make sure all medical information about you (especially including your medication) is aligned – by keeping good medical records, and updating the doctors in the NHS that you are with today.
Other resource
There are lots of other examples in this longer article on our sister NHS website, MyHSN here.
Last Reviewed on 28 August 2024
