Our dinosaur NHS has the chance to lumber ahead - The Guardian 28th February 2008

America's National Academy of Engineering has set the planet's best brains 14 grand challenges for the 21st century. Along with "reverse-engineer the brain" and "provide energy from fusion" is one that will strike an immediate note in Britain: "advance health informatics". Healthcare, the academy explains (at engineeringchallenges.org) has largely escaped the information revolution. Medical information systems are "plagued" by mixtures of old and new technologies. "Computerised records are often incompatible, using different programs for different kinds of data, even within a given hospital." It calls for a concerted effort to develop ways of capturing information and making the right information available securely to the right person at the right time.

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