An Overview of Computerised Endoscopy Record Systems

Abstract

The extremely rapid growth of fibreoptic endoscopy over the last 15 years has created a number of problems, among them difficulty in providing the necessary facilities for its performance. This particularly applies to the National Health Service (NHS) where the major funding comes from the government. Unfortunately the growth in gastrointestinal endoscopy has occurred at a time when resources for the “acute sector” have been reduced, and where demands on these limited funds has been intense. As a result it has proved extremely difficult to obtain the necessary resources for developing fibreoptic endoscopic services effectively, and many hospitals have still no adequate facilities for its performance. These difficulties have been exacerbated by the lack of adequate data on activities in this field at both local and national level. While the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) has done its best to highlight these problems the authorities have been slow to recognise how much work is being done because it does not show up in their databases. This is partly explained by the lack of an adequate method for recording such activities (for example, the current OPCS system does not specifically record such procedures), and because many of these examinations are performed on outpatients, and, therefore, do not get into hospital activity analysis (HAA) data.