Hospital doctors' memory sticks threaten data security

Two doctors surveyed their colleagues at a teaching hospital in London and found that 92 out of 105 held unsecured memory sticks, 79 held confidential patient information but only 5 were password protected. The authors said this is a clear breach of data security, reported the BBC.

They claim that the findings reflect the lack of security across UK hospitals and beyond.

Although hospitals issue doctors with chip-and-pin cards to access NHS databases and patient records, many doctors increasingly rely on their own memory sticks to store patients data tradidtionally written in doctors' notebooks.

The DH said "any breach of patient security is unacceptable…...The NHS locally has legal responsibility to comply with data protection rules." The survey is published in today's Health Service Journal.

Peter Hill report - From knowledge to health in the 21st Century

The Hill Report is a review of the NHS Libraries in England commissioned by the National Library of Health(NLH) with the aim to help the NLH to "transform patient care and public health".

There are 50 recommendations, I think the followings may be of particular interest to clinical teams that support evidence-based practice:

In every NHS organisation, someone at board level should be entrusted with the role of Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) for that organisation with the responsibility as described

Every clinical or management team in the NHS should identify someone in the team as Team Knowledge Officer (TKO) who will have responsibility for ensuring the effective nput of evidence to enable the team to function properly

Library & related information/knowledge services must be regarded as part of the core business of the NHS by the DH & all NHS organisations, all of whom need access to an appropriate service & an skilled librarian

The last DH guidance on library service was issued in 1997.

If you are a clinician, do you regard the library & knowledge services part of the core business of the NHS? What is your view?

UK NHS fail on hygiene standards

In the UK, there are growing concerns among patients about C.difficile and MRSA infections following the C.difficile outbreak in Kent that had killed 90 patients between 2004 and 2006.

According to the Healthcare Commission report, 1 in 4 hospital trusts in England are failing to protect patients from deadly superbugs and to meet basic hygiene standards including cleaning hands and instruments.

See also the article "Doctors need a "sea change" in their attitude to C. difficile" BMJ 2007;335:790 (20 October).

NHS independence

The Nuffield Trust commissioned a project to review the governance structures and the position of the NHS. The author said in the report that politicians should stop meddling in the NHS and allow it to be run as an independent body.

MTAS update

In the controversy over MTAS ( See posting on 28 March 2007), Channel 4 News reported on 20 April that a leaked document showed that the Government was considering offering voluntary work overseas for unsuccessful doctors. VSO had given information on its placements to the DoH. The document also revealed that about 10,000 doctors may be at risk. Read more...

Channel 4 News also reported on 24 April the security breach, alerted by a doctor, after an error at the MTAS website where highly personal details of thousands of junior doctors could be seen. The DoH was informed by Channel 4 News and the website was temporarily suspended amid concerns of security lapses.

The latest error of MTAS was the rejection of the application of a UK born doctor, Dr Luk who went to Cambridge University, because he did not have the "correct immigration status". Although the London Deanery has apologised for the error, he still has not had any interviews.

Doctors groups reacted with dismay and had little faith left with what they described a "shambolic" system. At the doctors conference in London last Saturday, delegates passed a motion calling for the Health Secretary Hewitt and Health Minister Hunt to resign, for NAO to investigate how much public money had been spent on the computer system and for the system to be scrapped.

The data watchdog, ICO, is to investigate the security breach that led to personal details made available online. Read more ...


Using iPods to teach doctors to recognise heartbeats
Research studies show that the average doctor identifies 40% of heart sounds correctly.

Dr Michael Barrett, associate professor and cardiologist at Temple University studied 149 doctors who listened 400 times to five common heart murmurs for 90 minutes on iPods. After the listening session, they got 80% right.
Dr Barrett believes that the key to learning heart murmurs is repetition but 400 heartbeats were too much to ask of a live patient, so he uses computer-generated simulations of "heart songs" and convert them into MP3 files that can be downloaded to iPods. His medical students listen to the recordings whenever they have the time, this will help improve their stethoscope skills.

Last month at the annual conference of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), Dr Barrett presented the findings of his study and said "cardiology can be taught by iPod …. older physicians can also benefit from adding the MP3s to their music libraries".