In a move to reduce costs and breathe new life into the long-abandoned £11.4 billion Centralised Records System, the NHS has announced a partnership with WhatsApp to improve access to patient data.
WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, has a vast number of industrial-strength servers at it’s disposal. This, combined with sophisticated indexing and search capabilities makes it the ideal business partner for the cash-strapped NHS.
“This really is a no-brainer.” said Health Secretary Jeremy “No Brains” Hunt, “Rather than waste billions of pounds on complicated IT that will never work and is completely unuseable, we can simply turn all patient data over to social media giants who have the hardware and knowhow to manage it effectively.”
He continued “Why spend money training healthcare prefessionals to use a new system when they are already proficient in using Facebook and WhatsApp? Add to this the vast revenue to be made from advertising and we’re in clover.”
WhatsApp CEO and co-founder Jan Koum said this morning “We believe that we can work effectively for health services around the World. Imagine the lives that could be saved when doctors can view a patient’s entire medical history simply by looking in the sidebar of their Facebook profile. Cross-linking this with the data from their friends and families profiles will enable them to gather information on trending maladies before they reach epidemic proportions.”
Further proposals include the addition of hashtags to Medic Alert bracelets, a ‘Featured Illnesses’ panel on Facebook feeds and friend suggestions based upon your STI history.
