Old pros in the NHS mocked Tony Blair's wish to have his medical record available when he was on holiday in Newquay, by pointing out that the overwhelming pattern of health care usage takes place close to home. While that is true, this week's report from the Healthcare Commission shows that the politicians were right, since the same principles underlie local and national data sharing - if you make my data interoperable between health care providers in Trimden (or Mayfair) then it's interoperable across the NHS.
This week, in the UK more pleading from central authorities to use the NHS Number, the single most obvious way to link data reliably. And in the US, where the need to share data is even greater, some tiny footsteps
Most outsiders would be amazed at the lack of interoperability, and how messy patient identification is, 60 years on from the inception of the NHS. It simply shows again the complex inner political dynamics of the NHS, and how information problems in the NHS are invariably social rather than technical.
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