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All too frequently I get the question: When will we see the EHR market consolidate? Not an unreasonable question considering just how many EHRs there are in the market today (north of 300) and all the buzz regarding growth in health IT adoption. There...

The US city is successfully combating chronic disease through community engagement, policies and measuring impact results As part of the investment in security surrounding the Olympics in London, the Health Protection Agency has been touting a state-of-the-art disease surveillance system promising real-time collection and analysis of health-related data to detect threats as early as possible. It tracks flu symptoms, rashes, vomiting, double vision, and other symptoms of infectious diseases. The effort is laudable, and it makes good sense for an event as big as the Games. But, when the Olympics...

All the best advice from our live discussion on how housing and health professionals can work closer together. Add your own ideas in the comments section below Richard Humphries is senior fellow at the health policy thinktank the King's Fund History: Since 1948 housing, health and care have remained in fundamentally separate silos – for good historical reasons – so we should not be surprised that we are still working out how they can work together when needs overlap. The key issues: Developing new partnerships with clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), through health and wellbeing boards, that...

Join our panel of experts from 12pm on Monday 30 July to discuss how housing and health can work together, in association with the National Housing Federation The health and housing sectors were described as "worlds apart" at last year's National Housing Federation conference, but the recommendations of the health select committee has meant this gap will need to be closed – and quickly. The need to better link the two professional commuities was highlighted in the committee's latest report , which warned that a failure to join up would lead to diminished quality of life for patients...

After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, former nurse Ann Johnson has made it her mission to educate healthcare professionals on the realities of living with the illness "I trained as a nurse in 1970 and dementia wasn't talked about much then. I would have wanted to know what causes patients distress." Forty years after qualifying, Ann Johnson is now travelling the country to speak to healthcare professionals about dementia and how it affects patients on a daily basis. She is well qualified to speak on the issue; as well as working in the NHS as a nurse for several years, she is...

Amid concerns that similar roles will be lost in the NHS reforms, we celebrate the work and impact of the specialist nurses Specialist learning disability liaison nurse Jainab Desai is making meticulous checks of the complex arrangements to receive a tricky patient with learning disabilities, with staff of the day surgery unit at Royal Bolton hospital. She has worked for weeks with staff, family and carers of the profoundly disabled and terrified woman (who needs a vascular procedure). This is to make sure that the patient will not freak at the entrance to the operating theatre, forcing the cancellation...

Andrew Lansley has unveiled the government's white paper on adult social care . Here are some thoughts on its contents from professionals and organisations in the sector Delayed funding decision Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society : "Millions of vulnerable people had been promised radical reform but today they are being massively let down. Every day without a funding decision is another day where people, including those with dementia, face huge costs for often substandard care. This white paper is not worth the paper it's written on." Gary Bailey, president...

The study was completed a long time ago, yet the findings haven't been published. Is it because the NHS doesn't like the conclusions? As an ageing patient, reluctant to go near hospitals for fear of contracting MRSA, I have been increasingly irritated that definitive results of the "whole systems demonstrator" (WSD) of telehealth and telecare have been so slow to appear . Preliminary findings were published and launched with a fanfare by the King's Fund last year. Then came silence, until January, when the government realised that telemedicine could mean vast savings for the...