The United Kingdom’s NHS — the world’s largest public health service — is working on creaking IT infrastructure, doctors tell the Financial Times.
“I am at a top London hospital and yet at times I feel as though we are operating in the stone age,” one doctor tells the FT. For example, doctors email lists of patients to themselves to print out elsewhere. Some 13.5 million working hours are estimated to be lost annually due to inadequate IT systems.
There isn’t a complete absence of modern tech. NHS works with a long list of suppliers. It also began a relationship with Google’s DeepMind almost a decade ago. No doubt many others see opportunities to help. Dozens of companies are building AI-enabled “scribes” to help clinicians handle extensive admin work; AI is also being applied to drug discovery.
For now, however, one doctor, talking with the FT, compares the odds of an NHS hospital being properly equipped to a coin toss.
Much is at stake: Given the NHS holds medical records for nearly 67 million people, a breach could become a meltdown.
