Is a paperless NHS feasible?

At E-Health Week, a representative from Lexmark discussed the NHS as a completely digital outfit by 2020. He said it could “change the fabric of our hospitals”.

He outlined some challenges in digitizing notes and other tools in the NHS and warned that it could shift the role of clinicians from patient care to capturers of new content.

Other challenges included:

• keeping mobile devices available at all times;
• keeping devices up to date; and
• information security.

He mentioned that going paperless was a transition and that paper notes could be useful short to medium term.

It was also noted that other countries, such as Norway and the Netherlands, were already operating on paperless systems successfully.