Commissioners are currently missing “whole swathes” of hospital information that could improve care in hospitals, an NHS chief has claimed.
Speaking at the launch of a consultation into the use of hospital data, NHS England’s chief data officer, Dr Geraint Lewis said commissioners currently miss a lot of information about the care patients receive.
Commissioners are currently missing “whole swathes” of hospital information that could improve care in hospitals, an NHS chief has claimed.
Speaking at the launch of a consultation into the use of hospital data, NHS England’s chief data officer, Dr Geraint Lewis said commissioners currently miss a lot of information about the care patients receive.
The consultation aims to discover what information should be extracted from hospitals to support the commissioners of healthcare services without placing an extra burden on hospitals.
Dr Lewis said: “Commissioners do not currently know what medications patients are receiving in hospital, nor what tests and investigations are being performed.
“By extracting a more complete set of data from hospitals, the NHS will be far better placed to raise standards and reduce inequalities in care.”
Dr Mark Davies, medical director of the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), who will be working with NHS England on the project said: “We will be combining this information with outcome data and patient experience data which will build greater insights into what’s working well and what isn’t.
"This has the potential to transform how we deliver clinical care. It is important, however that the data we use to run the NHS reflects the real world experience of our clinicians and patients.”
The NHS Hospital Data and Datasets Consultation closes on 16th September 2013.
