Integrating ecosystem markets to co-ordinate landscape-scale public benefits from nature.

Ecosystem markets are proliferating around the world in response to increasing demand for climate change mitigation and provision of other public goods. However, this may lead to perverse outcomes, for example where public funding crowds out private investment or different schemes create trade-offs between the ecosystem services they each target. The integration of ecosystem markets could address some of these issues but to date there have been few attempts to do this, and there is limited understanding of either the opportunities or barriers to such integration.

Primary Care Patient Records in the United Kingdom: Past, Present, and Future Research Priorities.

This paper briefly outlines the history of the medical record and the factors contributing to the adoption of computerized records in primary care in the United Kingdom. It discusses how both paper-based and electronic health records have traditionally been used in the past and goes on to examine how enabling patients to access their own primary care record online is changing the form and function of the patient record. In addition, it looks at the evidence for the benefits of Web-based access and discusses some of the challenges faced in this transition.

The view of a general practitioner on immediate access for patients to their laboratory test results.

This position paper presents the role of laboratory test results in traditional general practice and provides a recommendation for responsible sharing of results with patients for improved safety, efficiency and outcomes. This paper looks at the relationship between the laboratory, the general practitioner consultation, the patient, safety and general practice capacity. We suggest changes in the traditional practice of communicating laboratory test results whereby normal or abnormal results are made available to patients as soon as they become available.

Accessing personal medical records online: a means to what ends?

Background: Initiatives in the UK to enable patients to access their electronic health records (EHRs) are gathering momentum. All citizens of the European Union should have access to their records by 2015, a target that the UK has endorsed.

Objectives: To identify the ways in which patients used their access to their EHRs, what they sought to achieve, and the extent to which EHR access was related to the concept of making savings.

The impact of patient record access on appointments and telephone calls in two English general practices: a population-based study.

Background Government policy expects all patients who wish to have online record access (RA) by 2015. We currently have no knowledge of the impact of patient record access on practice workload. Setting Two urban general practices in Manchester.

Patient record access--the time has come.

There are now a number of systems across the world that enables patients to view their electronic health records. These include kiosks that have fingerprint authentication and also net-based access. The paper outlines the approach taken by the UK NHS explains the legal underpinning of access.

Sharing electronic health records: the patient view.

The introduction of a national electronic health record system to the National Health Service (NHS) has raised concerns about issues of data accuracy, security and confidentiality. The primary aim of this project was to identify the extent to which primary care patients will allow their local electronic record data to be shared on a national database. The secondary aim was to identify the extent of inaccuracies in the existing primary care records, which will be used to populate the new national Spine.