[News] NHS Failure Leads to Denial - Guess Whose Fault?

Accenture: NHS failure is 'track record for success'

,----[ Quote ]
| After months of negotiations, Accenture handed contracts worth £2bn over
| to rival Computer Sciences Corporation after getting paid just £110m
| for spending a third of the allotted 10 years on the job. Its hand had
| been forced by losses of $450m it was set to make on the deal this
| year.
`----

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/09/28/accenture_failure_success/

Microsoft in the NHS

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is one of the key technology firms in the £6.2 billion NHS
| IT programme. It is working particularly closely with iSOFT ...
`----

http://www.e-health-insider.com/comment_and_analysis/index.cfm?ID=69

Also see:

CfH refutes computer failure claims

,----[ Quote ]
| "Very often they are not major incidents as such, but could be caused when
| a patient administration system is running slow or there may be problems
| with the local network. The severity level is attributed by the user and
| this is subsequently very often down graded or amended."
|
| Many of the incidents that have been reported by CfH include failure of
| the systems used by surgeons to see X-ray pictures on a computer screen
| in wards and operating theatres. On some occasions the system is believed
| to have crashed during an operation, forcing surgeons to suspend the
| procedure while a hard copy of the X-ray is found.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/19/cfh_defends_itself/

on Sep 29 2006 8:58 Tim Smith wrote:

> Just where is this magical "elsewhere" you think IT buyers can look?
> (Hint: it isn't Sun or IBM...they have the same kind of restriction)
> (Further hint: so does the GPL).

It isn't just Microsoft, a while back Accenture almost put Sainsbury's
out of business while installing an automated stock control system.
Shelves were going empty during the upgrade. They had to hire on extra
staff to do it manually. It isn't only a matter of what software to use
but the competence of the company.

A relevent question to ask is, has this ever been done before elsewhere
and if so can we see it working. I would also question the wisdom of
using an OS that comes with a ninety day guarantee. That's a hint for
those of you who say there is no guarantee with Open Source.

As for software for medical equipment. The best solution is embedded
hardware connected to a central system with allowance for 'failure
mode'. That is when the central system goes down the client units can
still provide service. Given the power of todays hardware you could
carry round an entire hospitals patent records on a single wheeled
trolly so there is no central point of failure.

Medical images on Fedora Core
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/14/1916259

Medical Images under LINUX and F/OSS
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent/2006/cf/network-deta...cfm?id=

Medical record on Debian
http://www.linux.com/howtos/Medicine-HOWTO/record.shtml

Suse Linux and magnetic resolution imaging (MRI)
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/52892.html

Sainsbury's ..is recruiting 3,000 shelf stackers to fix the damage
manually ..
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ca99f0e7d3...bf3?hl=
--

I still believe you're a Linux Advocate ..