• Should all NHS premises provide free access to wi-fi? Yes, argues Victoria Betton in a head to head article published today. Betton, mHabitat programme director at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, says the advantages of free wi-fi in healthcare settings in an increasingly digitised world make sense, facilitating more patient activation and engagement. […]
Category: David Payne
The BMJ Today: Drug company payments, compassion, and patient centredness
• Should doctors be forced to disclose payments and hospitality from drug companies? The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry plans to bring in a system where healthcare professionals voluntarily declare payments and hospitality received from drug companies. The issue is the subject of our latest online poll, which, at the time of writing, has […]
David Payne: Remembering 7/7 ten years on
Outside BMA House a solitary bunch of purple stocks hangs from the railings, alongside the memorial plaque to victims of the Tavistock Square suicide bomb attack on a London bus 10 years ago. As passers-by stop to read the names of the dead, inside the building survivors of the blast, along with bereaved friends and […]
The BMJ Today: “Rapid responses are wonderful”
Michael Stone praises The BMJ’s article based post publication peer review in a weekend rapid response to my feature marking the 20th anniversary of the journal’s website last week. They “allow for an almost immediate analysis of “intricate and technical issues” which arise from the original paper,” he writes, adding: “It is possible to effectively “debate a point […]
David Payne at Health 2:0 Europe 2015
Is the Uber minicab model fit for healthcare? Why are doctors terrible digital adopters? And can the medical workforce benefit from using applications which promise virtual doctors on demand? These questions and others were debated at day 1 of technology conference Health 2:0, an annual event which profiles “international innovation in patient-provider communication, consumer health, […]
David Payne: Top nurses with a tamed Hound
Spare a thought for the comedian asked to host a professional awards ceremony within a week of the UK general election. Oliver Reed lookalike Rufus Hound (pictured) showed all the signs of having his comic wings clipped as he took to the podium at London’s Savoy Hotel last week to present the Nursing Standard Nurse Awards. […]
The BMJ Today: Watch, read, listen, do
If you watch one thing today . . . See the two video clips embedded in the “Comptetent Novice” paper “A quick ward assessment of older patients by junior doctors,” and see if you agree with the weekend response posted by Birmingham doctor Yousuf Ansari. If you listen to one thing today . . . The […]
David Payne at WIRED Health 2015
9.20am: I’m in London at WIRED Health 2015, “exploring the future of healthcare.” Already I’ve bumped into a would-be investor and I’ve just had a “power shot” of grapefruit juice spiked with chili. Now I’m browsing the exhibitor stands, which includes live demo of the elegant cream leather Tao chair which, according to its inventor and Tao Wellness […]
The BMJ Today: History lessons
• In 1938 New Zealand created a national health system, coining the term “from cradle to grave,” and showing the British government what was possible. More recently, the country repealed its unsuccessful, competition based health legislation. As it is now hard to find anyone in England who believes that the 2012 Health and Social Care […]
David Payne: How to be an academic social media star
Melissa Terras is the most downloaded academic in her faculty at UCL, and attributes her success to social media. Eight years ago Terras (pictured below), director of UCL’s Centre for Digital Humanities, was supervising a PhD student’s research into the history of blogging. She started her own blog in response to this, but it was […]