Saturday, March 25, 2006
Light at the end of the tunnel
Well after starting with having zero points at the end of August on our new computer system I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel for my points acquiring ambitions for this year.
So how many points have I managed to to acquire in this first year of my new career as a gp practice manager?
620 points out of a possible 650 or put in another way 95% of those that are possible. I'm pretty pleased with my self and the doctor I work for, we have worked very hard and achieved a creditable performance, all while summarising 700+ patients notes, and 150 odd new patient summaries.
It doesn't stop there though, the data starts to degrade almost as soon as it has been collected and it gets a lot, lot harder next year as the targets for generating maximum points has been put back in the melting pot and the rewards for doing more work in reality get smaller.
I'm starting to really get to grips with the computer system and have already identified people for the new registers that are being set up for obesity, chronic kidney disease, dementia etc. etc.
Medical computer systems
To be honest I think the ready availability of pretty reliable statistics that are now being provided by medical computer systems is going to make a dramatic effect on the long term care of the UK population. The need for Hospitals are not going to shrink though, as more and more people are going to make it to a very old age.
Government planning should be a lot more reliable than in the past, but somehow I doubt they will make the best use of resources.
Next Year
Hopefully I'll be a bit more active on the internet front this year, my enthusiasm for using a computer during my spare time is somewhat blunted, when I'm having to spend 10+ hours a day in front of it for work.
Things that I will be working on this year include http://www.chooseandbook.nhs.uk/ and practice based commissioning, not something I'm really, really keen to have to spend my time on, but something I don't really have a choice about. I hope it is worth all the effort.
So how many points have I managed to to acquire in this first year of my new career as a gp practice manager?
620 points out of a possible 650 or put in another way 95% of those that are possible. I'm pretty pleased with my self and the doctor I work for, we have worked very hard and achieved a creditable performance, all while summarising 700+ patients notes, and 150 odd new patient summaries.
It doesn't stop there though, the data starts to degrade almost as soon as it has been collected and it gets a lot, lot harder next year as the targets for generating maximum points has been put back in the melting pot and the rewards for doing more work in reality get smaller.
I'm starting to really get to grips with the computer system and have already identified people for the new registers that are being set up for obesity, chronic kidney disease, dementia etc. etc.
Medical computer systems
To be honest I think the ready availability of pretty reliable statistics that are now being provided by medical computer systems is going to make a dramatic effect on the long term care of the UK population. The need for Hospitals are not going to shrink though, as more and more people are going to make it to a very old age.
Government planning should be a lot more reliable than in the past, but somehow I doubt they will make the best use of resources.
Next Year
Hopefully I'll be a bit more active on the internet front this year, my enthusiasm for using a computer during my spare time is somewhat blunted, when I'm having to spend 10+ hours a day in front of it for work.
Things that I will be working on this year include http://www.chooseandbook.nhs.uk/ and practice based commissioning, not something I'm really, really keen to have to spend my time on, but something I don't really have a choice about. I hope it is worth all the effort.
