HI-TECH NHS

It may surprise many of you to learn that computers have played an important role in the Isle of Man NHS for 30 of its 60 years. The first computers were installed in Noble’s Hospital way back in 1978 with Microbiology being the lucky beneficiary. The microbiology staff used these to do Microbiology reports and also did the first experiment of printing patient ID labels for use on request forms in 1979. 8 and 9 staff would bring the admission slips down and the microbiology staff would print the labels for them. The experiment was a success and it then took another five years to get the money to put in the central system (old EDS PAS) in 1984.

In 1984, medical records became the first area outside a laboratory to get to work on these revolutionary machines, four to be precise. They also had the latest printer technology! It was at one of these that the first patient record was entered on to the EDS PAS Master Patient Index on 5th November 1984. From November 1984 the Medical Records staff started printing labels for every ward centrally. In 2005 we finally managed to get printing of patient ID labels available on all of the wards. This was due to the investment in an extra 450 ward and clinical areas based PC’s when the new hospital opened in 2003.

By 1986, Noble’s Hospital had invested in 20 computers, one for each ward, each costing £5000. Admission, discharge and transfers were done on these ward terminals from 1986 and the first lab results were available on them in that year too!!!, Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital and the Ramsey GP practice also had access to these facilities from 1988.

Today, Noble’s Hospital has roughly 1,000 Personal Computers (PC’s) including technical equipment such as laboratory analysers, ECG machines, Equipment Sterilisers, etc.

The pictures below show a fascinating story of the birth of IT in the NHS :

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