Due to the unique nature among the service industries, the overriding objective of the healthcare sector is to provide error free, impeccable services to their patients and clientele. It is not an option rather a norm for the healthcare sector to uphold and maintain the level of service that is quintessential and benchmark in the service industries. However, service quality has different meanin...

Since its establishment in 1948, the history of the National Health Service (NHS) has been characterized by organisational turbulence and system reform. At the same time, progress in science, medicine and technology throughout the western world have revolutionized the delivery of healthcare. The NHS has become a much loved, if much critiqued, national treasure. It is against this backdrop that ...

In this paper, we analyse the special security requirements for software support in healthcare and the HealthAgents system in particular. Our security solution consists of a link-anonymised data scheme, a secure data transportation service, a secure data sharing and collection service, and a more advanced access control mechanism. The novel security service architecture, as part of the integrat...

Integrating services is a hot topic amongst health system policy-makers and healthcare managers. There is some evidence that integrated services deliver efficiencies and reduce service utilisation rates for some patient populations. In their article on Achieving Integrated Care for Older People, Gillian Harvey and her colleagues formulate some critical insights from practice and research around...

Today, cloud computing infrastructure is largely being deployed in healthcare to access various healthcare services easily over the Internet on an as-needed basis. The main advantage of healthcare cloud is that it can be used as a tool for patients, medical professionals and insurance providers, to query and coordinate among medical departments, organizations and other healthcare related hubs. ...

The home healthcare staff scheduling problem is concerned with the allocation of care tasks to healthcare staff at a minimal cost, subject to healthcare service requirements, labor law, organizational requirements, staff preferences, and other restrictions. Healthcare service providers strive to meet the time window restrictions specified by the patients to improve their service quality. This p...

This commentary explores some of the issues raised by Gilbert et al.short communication, Morality and Markets in the NHS. The increasing role of market mechanisms and the changing types of healthcare providers together with the use of choice and competition to drive improvements in quality in the National Health Service (NHS), all have important ethical implications. In order for the NHS to con...