The NHS could save more than £1bn a year by applying Web-based
technologies to healthcare, says a report by consultancy PwC
Consulting, a division of Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
The white paper warns that most healthcare systems around the world
are inefficient, thanks partly to inadequate use of IT.
A spokesman for the consultancy said, "Physicians, hospitals, drug
companies and laboratories do not yet fully use IT to interact with
one another or share knowledge, resulting in a poor service for the
patient and increased transaction costs."
The report suggests that extensive use of the Internet in the
healthcare industry could improve patient service and help the
different organisations to save money through greater sharing of
information.
E-health has also been identified as a way for the UK's health
service to cope with spiralling volumes of data and the need to
share it more efficiently.
The spokesman explained, "As information flows around the system
more freely, there will be a move to greater standardisation."
He also predicted that new patient management systems and access to
electronic health records would improve efficiency throughout the
health service.
Experts agree that the use of Web-based Internet technologies could
help NHS reform. Murray Bywater, managing director of healthcare
analyst firm Silicon Bridge Research, said, "In the UK we are
spending an estimated £8bn a year for people to process NHS
information."
Web-based technologies could reduce this cost and allow easier
implementation of the Government's plans to reform the NHS, he
said.
PwC Consulting is part of a consortium including Oracle, McKesson
and IBM, which was last week awarded a £325m contract to build an
integrated HR and payroll system for the NHS.