Access to patient data would improve illness surveillance
Surveillance of winter illnesses and other infections could be greatly enhanced by access to electronic patient data, says a new report.
“A winter’s tale” (PDF 600K), published by the Health
Protection Agency last week, outlines the strains put on the health service
by the
increased
levels of infections in winter.
Most surveillance data are currently received from separate sources,
the report explains, such as general practitioner-reported cases, hospital
admissions and laboratory specimens examined. Combining this data could
contribute to the more effective management of these illnesses by the
health service.
The report says that the use of a unique identifier such as the NHS number
could allow information such as recent antibiotic use, vaccination status
and other pathology results to be taken into account in the analysis
of surveillance data.
The report acknowledges that the need to maintain patient confidentiality
would present a problem for such a system, but says that using unique
patient code numbers could overcome this. “At present individuals
have the right to bar the use of personal data from being passed to any
other person other than those involved in their direct clinical care.
Routine surveillance, however, cannot function if patients opt out in
this way,” it says.
News feature p76 |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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