The NHS in England is also on a drive for infection prevention, given the multitude of signs to wash your hands when you walk the corridors of an average NHS hospital. Recent news from Scotland suggests that hospital staff don’t have time to wash their hands properly, resulting in low compliance and rising number of cases of hygiene related infections, such as C. diff. This type of news, as usual, attracts a lot of media attention and political statements such as “zero tolerance”.

Failures to deliver on simple life-saving measures relating to Health IT usually don’t get similar attention. Just the other day, I attended an Electronic Health Record conference where the question was raised by one of the key-note speakers whether the benefits of a national EHR are sufficiently substantiated to warrant the breach of confidentiality that is introduced by a new law that enforces the use of a national EHR. Actually, according to a recent study, a majority of Dutch doctors thinks it is too early for a national EHR, citing security and privacy as the biggest risks.

The volumes of research available on this issue are apparently insufficient to convince and motivate the medical professionals or the community at large. The contribution by the Washington Post cited earlier in this blog is just another example. I suppose media, health professionals and administrators rather wash their hands of Health IT …

If you are aware of truly effective means to communicate life-threatening situations caused by a lack of adequate Health IT, please share them with us and with the community at large! It may help save your life …