Last week, I attended a seminar at the University of Tokyo, organised by the Todai Policy Alternatives Research Institute. I spoke about the secondary uses of data from electronic patient records in the UK (the primary use is defined as their role in providing direct clinical care). Also speaking at the conference were John Halamka from Harvard and Nikolaus Forgo from Hanover, as well as speakers from the University of Tokyo, such as Professor Morita, Professor Akiyama, and Professor Sakata. Amongst the audience of 250 were representatives from clinical medicine, academia, government and health service management. I was very impressed by the expertise and commitment to this area of work in Japan. You can view a summary of the proceedings in Japanese.
As part of a session on primary care data in the Health Informatics module on the Imperial Master of Public Health Programme, I asked students to work in two groups to present arguments for and against the NHS Care.Data programme. Care.Data is an NHS programme that will extract data from the medical records held by general practitioners (GPs) in England. The Care.Data programme takes advantage of the very high level of use of electronic medical records by GPs in England. After extraction, data will be uploaded to the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). The data will then be used for functions such as health care planning, monitoring disease patterns and research. The programme has been controversial with proponents arguing that the programme will bring many benefits for the NHS and the population of England; and opponents arguing it is a major breach of privacy. You can view the two presentations to help inform you further about these arguments: Arguments fo...
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