Privacy: Open Data, Individual and Group

The vertical axis of Hodges' model is the individual - group, or self through to collective. Health and social care constantly negotiates this from the ideals and delivery of person-centred care to public mental health. So often for health professionals the emphasis is on the individual, the person's care needs, their strengths, their rights, outcomes and feedback on care received. The same individual focus is also ascribed to records and information. Protection of data, maintaining confidentiality is an essential duty of health care  professionals.  

Earlier this year the government's care.data scheme was placed on hold. 'Open' is the way of the world: open access, open source, open data and open government. Increasingly the group as an entity needs to considered in what may be a new way, as Floridi writes:

The idea that groups may have a right to privacy is not new, and it is open to debate, but it has not yet received all the attention it deserves, although it is becoming increasingly important.

 ...

Open data is more likely to treat types (of customers, users, citizens, demographics population, etc.) rather than tokens (you, Alice, me), and hence groups rather than individuals. But re-identifiable groups are ipso facto targetable groups.It is therefore a very dangerous fallacy to think that, if we protect personal data that identify individuals, the protection of the groups will take care of itself. p.23.

Luciano Floridi. Group Privacy. The Philosophers' Magazine. Issue 65, 2nd Quarter 2014. Pages 22-23.

Here is a related book (on my list) a BMJ award winner:

The Private Life, Josh Cohen

The war over private life spreads inexorably. Some seek to expose, invade and steal it, others to protect, conceal and withhold it. Either way, the assumption is that privacy is a possession to be won or lost.

But what if what we call private life is the one element in us that we can't possess? Could it be that we're so intent on taking hold of the privacy of others, or keeping hold of our own only because we're powerless to do either? ...

ERCIM News No. 99 Special theme: "Software Quality"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 99 has just been published at
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en99

Special Theme: "Software Quality"
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en99/special/

And on the occasion of ERCIM’s 25th anniversary, we published a selection of articles on the future challenges of ICST:
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en99/challenges-for-icst

Keynote by Willem Jonker, CEO EIT ICT Labs: "The Future of ICT: Blended Life"
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en99/keynote/the-future-of-ict-blended-life



This issue is also available for download as:
pdf:  http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN99/EN99-web.pdf
epub: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN99/EN99.epub

Next issue: No. 100, January 2015 - Special Theme: "Scientific Data Sharing"

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Best regards,
Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Fellowship Programme
ERCIM offers fellowships for PhD holders from all over the world.
Next application deadline: 30 September 2014 http://fellowship.ercim.eu/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERCIM News
is published quarterly by ERCIM, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics.
The printed edition will reach about 6000 readers.
This email alert reaches over 7300 subscribers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
About ERCIM
ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics - aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry. Leading European research institutes are members of ERCIM. ERCIM is the European host of W3C.
http://www.ercim.eu/

Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ercim_news
and join the open ERCIM LinkedIn Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ERCIM-81390

[c/o hipnet] Data Visualization Enthusiast? Join us on the Data Viz Hub!

Dear Colleagues

The recently launched Data Viz for Development Hub [http://datavizhub.co] is a vibrant community for sharing resources, tools, examples, and ideas about data visualization. Using graphs, charts, maps, tables, infographics, and other visualizations can improve how we communicate information to stakeholders and the larger development community. With a wealth of resources available, and a growing interest across international development practitioners to build effective visualizations, the Hub will help keep communicators, evaluators, developers and others in the know about data viz best practices and new tools, connecting visualizers from all domains of expertise.

Check out the Hub at datavizhub.co, and join the community listserv by emailing:
dataviz AT knowledge-gateway.org with the subject "Join." We look forward to connecting with you about all things data viz!

Questions? Contact Libby Skolnik at libby.skolnik AT jhu.edu

Source: http://www.hipnet.org/

Better information means better care

BBC Radio 4: Inside Health 21 January 2013

Margaret McCartney and Mark Porter ask whether the anonymity of patient records on a new NHS database can be guaranteed?

NHS: Your records:

Using information about the care you have received, enables those involved in providing care and health services to improve the quality of care and health services for all. The role of the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) is to ensure that high quality information is used appropriately to improve patient care. 

NHS England has therefore commissioned a programme of work on behalf of the NHS, public health and social care services to address gaps in information. Our aim is to ensure that the best possible evidence is available to improve the quality of care for all.  ...

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/records/healthrecords/Pages/care-data.aspx

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

my interests	scientific interests
social interests	commercial interests

group - population

ERCIM News No. 96 Special theme: "Linked Open Data"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 96 has just been published at
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en96

Special Theme: "Linked Open Data"
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en96/special/
Guest editors: Irini Fundulaki (Institute of Computer Science, FORTH) and Sören Auer (University of Bonn and Fraunhofer IAIS)

Keynote: "Linked Data: The Quiet Revolution" by Wendy Hall

This issue for download
pdf: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN96/EN96-web.pdf
epub: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN96/EN96.epub

Next issue: No. 97, April 2014 - Special Theme: "Cyber-Physical Systems"
(see the call at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/call)

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Best regards,
Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor

--------------------------------------------------
An initiative for the ERCIM members: Call for Participation - identifying the emerging grand challenges in ICST http://kwz.me/74

Infostandards.org: HSCIC supports the information standards community

Dear Peter,

You may have seen the publicity this week regarding the launch of a new website, www.infostandards.org, developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, working with the Department of Health, NHS England and other commissioning partners.

Infostandsards.org has been developed to support information standards professionals across health and social care. The site provides a single place where all information standards can be located, along with valuable supporting material, such as e-learning, implementation guidance and case studies. It also enables users of the site to become active participants in the development and appraisal of standards, by providing the means to share material, draw on each others’ experiences and engage in discussions about existing and potential future standards.

TRUD is pleased to support this new venture and recognises the importance of engaging with information standards professionals across health and social care. The site provides a single place where all information standards can be accessed, along with valuable supporting materials, such as e-learning, implementation guidance and case studies. It also enables users of the site to share material, draw on each other’s experiences and engage in discussions about existing and potential future standards, collections and extractions.

The site’s scope and design will evolve continually to meet the needs and preferences of the community, so we encourage you to become active users and help shape its future development. It is the intention that the site will be an integral part of the assurance process for information standards and collections, details of which will be made available on the site in due course.

Dr Ken Lunn, Director of Information Standards Delivery, said:

"We have supported the creation of the infostandards.org website because openness and increased engagement with end users can only improve the development, delivery and adoption of effective information standards. Standards are essential to the delivery of improved, digitally enabled health and care services and by collaborating with the wider community we can tackle together the challenges we all face. I look forward to seeing how the site will be used by the community."

In support of implementation of the NHS dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d) the Pharmacy Terminology team are currently updating some of the dm+d implementation guidance. Following feedback from the community a starter guide to dm+d providing an overview of dm+d, an explanation of the Standard, how it relates to the SNOMED CT UK Drug Extension and some fundamentals on content, structure and the release itself has been drafted and is available for comment on infostandards.org.

http://www.infostandards.org/topic/prescribing/dmd-draft-user-guide-available-for-review

The guidance is not currently ready for formal consultation but we would value your input at this juncture to see if the contents are useful and useable.

Questions about www.infostandards.org can be sent to info.standards AT hscic.gov.uk and via twitter where you can follow us @infostandards

Regards

The TRUD support team
Health and Social Care Information Centre

Southern Institute for Health Informatics 2013 Annual Conference 11 September 2013, Portsmouth, UK

The annual SIHI conference will be held in Portsmouth on Wednesday 11 September and we invite you to participate. 

The conference theme this year is the challenging question: 

“From ‘Big Data’ to Collective Wisdom?” 

The programme will address a range of topics related to how information can change practice and culture in health and social care. Why is there such tolerance of unsafe processes in the NHS? Will information transparency help to break down a bullying culture where it persists? Why is there still such an information gulf between care sectors? Can operational care data reliably guide individual patient management and service commissioning? Is the latest ‘paperless NHS’ aspiration achievable and, if so, how?

Fundamentally we are asking what is happening to the ‘wisdom quotient’ of health and social care and looking at inspiring examples of excellence.

The programme will feature keynote speakers and a range of invited and submitted presentations. In addition, the “Infomart”, an informal information marketplace area, will allow vendors and researchers to set out a stall to meet people and exchange information.

If you would be interested in contributing to the programme or if you have an idea you would like to discuss, please email us at SIHI at port.ac.uk. Proposals for presentations should be accompanied by a 100-150 word outline, and will be considered until the programme is finalised. The SIHI 2013 conference website is at www.port.ac.uk/sihi

Citizen 2013 Conference - June (attending)

 


Jeff Peel has sent you a message.

Subject: You're Invited

On June 13th we'll be holding our annual CITIZEN conference. It will be held at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge - just across the Bridge from the Palace of Westminster. I was wondering if you'd like to attend as my guest.

CITIZEN 2013 will draw upon the latest thinking in citizen focused service provision and will look at the types of technologies that are emerging that make public bodies better at responding to citizen needs. We’ll look at how traditional interactions need to be embraced, but also web and social media based interactions.

The conference will draw upon the experience of civil servants, policy makers, technologists, bloggers and market watchers. The 2013 event will look in detail at government service provision in an age of austerity, the move from open data to open services, and the ‘digital by default’ agenda.

The event will last all day and we'll provide refreshments throughout the day and a buffet lunch. There will also be a drinks reception at the end of the day.

If you'd like to attend please just reply to this message and provide me with an email address. I'll take care of the rest.

You can also get the latest information about speakers etc. by visiting our Lanyrd page here:
http://lanyrd.com/2013/citizen2013/ - and we'll also be announcing speakers and schedule via the event site at http://citizen2013.com over the next few weeks.

Hope to see you on June 13.

Kind regards,
Jeffrey Peel
www.citizen2013.com

FatFonts - fonts with real weight: Giving space and data form

How it works (from fatfonts.org):

Fatfonts are designed so that the amount of dark pixels in a numeral character is proportional to the number it represents. For example, “2″ has twice the ink than “1″, “8″ has two times the amount of dark ink than “4″ etc. You can see this easily in the set of characters below:

Source for the above and animated: http://visual.ly/fatfonts-player?view=true

My source: Jacob Aron, Making numbers punch their weight, New Scientist, 5 May 2012, 214, 2863, p.12.

Semantic Web journal Special Issue on Cognitive Science and the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web journal invites paper submissions for a special issue on "Cognitive Approaches for the Semantic Web." The scope of the special issue includes research from cognitive science that employs Semantic Web technologies, ontologies, or Linked Data as well as semantic web research that takes inspiration from Cognitive Science findings and methods. We also invite work from domains that would benefit from a closer integration of cognitive science methods into the Semantic Web such as the digital humanities, bioinformatics, and GIScience. Submitted research may address a variety of topics including (but not limited to) reasoning, information retrieval and integration, personalization, context, patterns, user interfaces, spatial cognition, and learning. All standard paper types from the Semantic Web journal may be submitted (research paper, survey paper, tool/system paper, dataset description paper, application report, ontology description - see http://www.semantic-web-journal.org/authors ). In addition, we invite vision and position papers of the highest quality, which will be evaluated as to their potential to stimulate research investigations on the interplay between Cognitive Science and Semantic Web.

Deadlines

Paper submission deadline: January 10, 2013
Notification: March 10, 2013

Editors of the special issue:

Rob Goldstone (Indiana University, Bloomington, US)
Frank van Harmelen (VU Amsterdam, NL)
Pascal Hitzler (Kno.e.sis Center, Wright State University, Dayton, US)
Krzysztof Janowicz (University of California, Santa Barbara, US)
Kai-Uwe Kühnberger (Universität Osnabrück, DE)

Guest editorial board (to be completed)

Benjamin Adams (University of California, Santa Barbara, US)
Claudia d'Amato (University of Bari, IT)
Alan Bundy (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Jérôme Euzenat (INRIA Rhône-Alpes, FR)
Helmar Gust (Universität Osnabrück, DE)
Cory Henson (Kno.e.sis Center, Wright State University, Dayton, US)
Zhisheng Huang (VU Amsterdam, NL)
Werner Kuhn (Universität Münster, DE)
Alexander Mehler (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, DE)
Simon Scheider (Universität Münster, DE)
Christoph Schlieder (Universität Bamberg, DE)
Lael Schooler (MPI für Bildungsforschung, DE)
Wei Lee Woon (Masdar Institute, Abu Dhabi, AE)
Gudrun Ziegler (DICA-lab, University of Luxembourg, LU)
...

Contact: If you have questions, please contact us via contact @ semantic-web-journal.net .

-- Prof. Dr. Pascal Hitzler
Dept. of Computer Science, Wright State University, Dayton, OH
http://www.knoesis.org/pascal/
Semantic Web Textbook: http://www.semantic-web-book.org
Semantic Web Journal: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net

Hodges' model: Lazy data, organisations and domain outreach (HSJ Ack.)

In the (northern) summer Dr Mark Davies (NHS Information Centre) noted that:

We have lots of data but it's lazy data. We have to make it work and turn it into actionable data - data we can do something with.

Interview: The hard data man's soft spot. Health Service Journal, 2 August, 2012. p.17.

There are many ways that we can put data to work. In the interview with HSJ Dr Davies also highlighted the common and not unexpected emphasis upon the organisational views of the world. Here in England in management the current preoccupation is the preparation for April 2013 of clinical commissioning groups. The NHS has an incredible resource in its data. Whether or not the volume involved qualifies as big data is debatable, but in the interview Dr Davies continues:

 Professionals have a duty to measure, to compare and open up their data to scrutiny. "We talk about the purchaser provider split," he says. "But I think that is the wrong purchaser and provider. It is the split between the tax payer and public services that is important. ..." p.17.

I've mapped this to Hodges' model below. You could say that taxation is POLITICAL and it clearly is, but it is also part of what is frequently termed the social contract. For me this is why Dr Davies' views matter.

Looking at the model we can also see the task ahead in the many ways (domains) in which data can be put to work.

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

PURPOSE	lazy data (inertia!) actionable data (information - knowledge)
public tax payers	ORGANISATIONS /                    \ PURCHASER  PROVIDER (citizens) public services

Integrated Health and Social Care Data: GIS torch

Last month the HSJ announced plans to integrated health and social care data (July 5th, pp. 6-7). The purpose is specific to support care commissioning, but ...

The related topic of integrated care is a round-robin element of policy debate. It may go quiet for a time, but it is there, needing to be fed in successive governmental and policy turns.

You might reasonably expect that integrated health and social care data, would be a by-product of integrated care. So the fact that data integration remains a 'to-do' demonstrates the patchwork nature of care integration and the many levels by which it can be defined: commissioning, practice (within domain) across care domains, budget, teams - disciplines, service organisations, care and education, public involvement and data. 

I hope the integration of health and social care data at the commissioning level might also put data into the hands of clinicians and social care teams - integrated of course!

The local insights that could flow would represent a real, tangible benefit. The news item stresses the potential value for commissioners. There are as ever several caveats:

• To what extent can health and social care staff influence the shape of the dataset?
• Is it crystallized (centralised) already?
• Can the new role for councils in public health finally ignite the GIS torch to illuminate what is really happening in the local community?

It happens that:

data 'integration' 

also = data 'orientating'

So - come on policy people, commissioners and managers, don't leave the workforce out of the loop. Staff on the ground are disoriented enough by the relentless pace of change. They need a sat-nav for care. Give them the torch they need.

What is that you say? They don't have the time to critique their (integrated) practice, to formulate their questions. And anyway - they don't have the access or the skills to use the informatics resources, let alone the nous to interpret the data! Well, if that is the case then shame on you.

IdN Extra 07: Infographics — Designing Data

Visiting Manchester twice this past fortnight I'd noticed this IdN special issue on infographics in the Cornerhouse shop. The shop's only small but there is lots to dive into - arts, media, design and philosophy.

When a database becomes a thing of beauty

Infographics or information graphics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. They are often used when complex information needs to be presented as quickly and effectively as possible, such as signs and maps. Infographics can be as simple as a bar chart or a pie graph to represent percentages in business information; or as elaborative as some of the examples in this book to communicate stories in newspapers and magazine.

Infographics can be entertaining when the information they represent is of personal interest; but it is especially fun and challenging when the topic may be as dry as representing concepts in technical manuals or scientific statics.

 <->

I don't know if it's the reduced scale, or my right eye talking but some of the text descriptions are difficult to read. The graphics and ideas are stunning, both in themselves and the questions they provoke.

SATBI+SWIM 2012 - Joint Workshop on Semantic Technologies Applied to Biomedical Informatics and Individualized Medicine - Call for Papers

http://nadir.uc3m.es/satbi+swim2012/

A defining characteristic of the next decade of biomedical research will be the explosion in the range and quantity of biomedical information, especially as it relates to individualized therapies. The purpose of this joint workshop is to discuss research challenges, results, methods and advances in the application of Semantic Web technologies to translating the wealth of biomedical information into therapies, tools, and care practices that improve health for patients and communities.

The workshop aims to attract researchers from Computer Science, Information Science, Biomedicine, Bioinformatics, and related areas to share research challenges, results, methods and advances in the appliance of Semantic Web technologies to two domains within Clinical and Translational research - bioinformatics and individualized medicine.

SATBI+SWIM 2012 has been divided in two separate tracks:

Track 1: SATBI (Semantic Applied Technologies on Biomedical Informatics)
Track 2: SWIM (Applying Semantic Web Technology for Clinical Decision Support and Cohort Identification in Individualized Medicine)

http://nadir.uc3m.es/satbi+swim2012/

My source:
Alejandro Rodríguez González to semantic-web at w3.org list.

Visual Methodologies Workshop in Newcastle

After Oxford Drupal Education Camp this Friday-Saturday proceedings move on to a NE workshop.

If your focus is on person-centered health care then the volume of data involved that pertaining to the individual can be readily apprehended. At least the example of a single episode of care. Of course, there are exceptions, people who might be the subject of special case studies so complex is their condition and pathology. Data volumes do vary markedly from person to person. A great deal of generated data in an individual instance might be taken for granted. In the reported findings, for example, of an MRI scan that is included in a referral. When provided existing diagnoses do much to enrich the information and knowledge contained in a referral, whilst reducing possible avenues for further data gathering.

Once we move from individuals to groups and populations then the volumes involved quickly become massive. Purposes and context reflect this change in scale; codified, anonymised, aggregated the individual is lost.

Both my day-to-day work and study of Hodges' model (in nursing, informatics, literacy...) are centered on individuals. 'Caseness' in a clinical word: a referral, home visits for the day, face-to-face interaction, care concepts in assessments, plans. ... Then there is envisioning a nurse-patient (carer) interaction, or individual's episode of care through Hodges' model. As per the model's structure, however, groups and populations must also be represented. This duality of personal and data scales makes this workshop on visual methodologies of instant relevance. The two days next week cover (with my emphasis):

Introduction to working with visual methodologies: understanding epistemologies and disciplinary boundaries

• Mapping
• Story-boarding
• Artefacts

Quality in visual methods: ethics, validity and reliability
Doing visual methods: lived examples of managing data capture, synthesis, analysis and dissemination
Modes of analysis: focusing on methodological and epistemological influence on the research process

Workshop part 1: working with self-created data
Workshop part 2: creating shared analytic frameworks for self-created data
Overarching ideas and ways forward for thinking about visual methodology

Hodges' model can be readily interpreted and presented as a map and a series of story boards. The model can also support analysis, synthesis: well, this is my belief that is shared by some people.

I have completed modules on research methods, but it seems increasingly that research methods, methodologies, data structures and algorithms overlap. It may be that advances in media, technology, data gathering and improved access to data sets is having this effect. Perhaps more integrative and open attitudes (interdisciplinarity) towards quantitative and qualitative research also accounts for this blurring; or it could just be me? Whatever is the case, I'm really looking forward to the programme, meeting the facilitators and students. I am hoping this will inform my project as per the aims of the workshop:

• Consider the role of visual methods in data collection, research ethics, synthesis, analysis and dissemination;
• Explore the theoretical prospectives, epistemological traditions and latest practices that have shaped the development of visual methodologies; and
• Enable participants to translate how visual methodologies can be used to support their own research.

I'll try and post from Oxford this Friday - Saturday and from Newcastle next week. From Newcastle I'll be heading to Edinburgh for the Scottish Ruby Conference. Lots to follow as I put 10 days unpaid leave to use.

Reflections [V] Conceptual Spaces At Work: Zwarts

As per previous CS@W posts Joost Zwarts' Constructing Conceptual Spaces for Lexical Semantics provided one of several examples at the conference of data analysis derived from large datasets. The abstract included:

The similarity structure of a conceptual space can be determined using lexical data or pile sorting, but it can also be based on some sort of analysis of the values involved. Using the work of Geeraerts et al. (1994) on Dutch clothing terminology, Zwarts (2010) demonstrates how a space of “shirts” can be constructed (either using graph or MDS techniques) along such lines, with fruitful results.  

This talk outlined the way features can be identified and decomposed. Key to this are classifiers which Zwarts listed as:

1 Psychological classifiers (piles)
 From similarity judgments or sorted piles
2 Lexical classifiers   (words)
 From common lexical descriptions
3 Analytical classifiers  (features)

The presentation provided a small example based on containers, which for me was very helpful as data is a real issue for my study of Hodges' model. There are datasets out there - nursing, classification systems - and secondary data sources to consider. As mentioned above Zwarts took a dataset comprised of 38,000 possible items from the clothing domain and used 244 from the sub-domain of shirts. [Geeraerts, Grondelaers, Bakema (1994). The Structure of Lexical Variation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ]

I am probably simplifying things but discussion of Hamming distance recalled for me old Byte articles on bit-classifiers. Whether a sign of progress (maturation) or my focus, but in the 1980s there were many articles on data structures and algorithms, for some reason quad trees proved quite an attraction. There was an approach to clinical classification by Johnson (1987) that adopted a ZIP code format. As Zwarts related his presentation I wondered where a primary care problem might reside in Hodges' model: (1000, 0100, 0010, 0001)? Alternately where is the emerging problem that is nudging this individual towards possible relapse?

Graphviz was used and multidimensional scaling. The talk became more technical, understanding aided by graphical examples as classical categories were introduced: A category C is classical iff it can be defined by a particular set of feature values. The conclusion brought together the technical aspects of the data examined: convexity is too strong, connectedness somewhat too weak, but that there is a clear notion of coherence. There was much here to learn from.

Johnson, B. (1987) Health Code, The Guardian, 23 July, 16 (see also (1990) Journal of Health Care Computing).

The following page is out of date but cites Johnson:
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/infselct.htm

(I don't want to upset searches on Google for 'conceptual spaces', so I've two more further posts this month on the conference concerning CSML and OntoSpaces.)

Here is the view from my B&B I enjoyed some lovely walks into Lund, plus using the bus. With a map that stayed in my laptop bag, I enjoyed getting lost on two occasions.

Visual Methodologies Doctoral Training Workshop 26 - 27 June 2012

Developing Theory & Practice in Visual Methodologies

The School of Education, Communication & Language Sciences and Durham University’s School of Education are holding a two-day workshop for doctoral students on the development and use of visual methodologies.

The workshop will take place on Tuesday, 26 June and Wednesday, 27 June 2012 at Newcastle University.

Further information about the workshop and how to register can be found at:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/education/postgraduate/visualmethodologies/

The workshop is part of the North East Doctoral Training Centre’s (NEDTC) annual programme of advanced training in the social sciences.

Please do not hesitate to contact Anne Parks ( NEDTC Secretary email a.l.park AT durham.ac.uk ) if you need any further information about the event.

My source:
ESA-ALL at JISCMAIL.AC.UK

ERCIM News No. 89 Special Theme: "Big Data"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 89 has just been published at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/

Special Theme: "Big Data"

Guest editors: Stefan Manegold, Martin Kersten, CWI, The Netherlands, and Costantino Thanos, ISTI-CNR, Italy
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en89/special

Keynote: "E-Infrastructures for Big Data: Opportunities and Challenges" by Kostas Glinos, European Commission
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en89/keynote/e-infrastructures-for-big-data-opportunities-and-challenges

Next issue: No. 90, July 2012 - Special Theme: "Cybercrime and Privacy Issues"
(see preliminary call at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/call)

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News. Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.
Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor

---

ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Fellowship Programme
ERCIM offers fellowships for PhD holders from all over the world. The next round is now open!
Deadline for applications: 30 April
http://fellowship.ercim.eu/

Issue 89 includes:
Performance Analysis of Healthcare Processes through Process Mining
by Diogo R. Ferreira
A-Brain: Using the Cloud to Understand the Impact of Genetic Variability on the Brain
by Gabriel Antoniu, Alexandru Costan, Benoit Da Mota, Bertrand Thirion and Radu Tudoran

Musings on Integrated Care: A Visible and Invisible Matter

If measures for clinical outcomes, health literacy, patient satisfaction, benefits and many more present a challenge then a measure for integrated care falls into the category of a very steep peak.

It's a nebulous concept, we know what we mean, we recognize the principles and we even allow for variation in what integration and integrated care means for different people.

The January 2012 integrated care report by The King's Fund and Nuffield Trust (my post on this) had me thinking about some of the ingredients that might contribute to measures of integrated care and our efforts to record it. What instruments and formats do we need - what mix of microscope (individual), telescope (population), strobe (snapshot), time lapse (series), objective - subjective? Some elements  then (in no particular order):

Breadth of the 'episode' (primary-secondary-tertiary-palliative)
The number of systems
  information - e-records
  commissioners
  datasets: total, number of gatherers, submissions
The number of people - individuals involved
The number of 'responsible' organisations
 Primary organisational efficiency - Lean Standing?
The number of teams
The number of policies (policy touches)
 The number of interviews, assessments (paper, electronic, formal), care plans, reviews
Opportunities for communications
  potential
  actual
  media forms
  delivery forms (inc. technologies)
Number of handovers
  weighted according to type
Patient experience - measure
 (that is holistic across physical, mental health, social care?)
 staff attitude
 therapeutic relationship engagement (quality)
 therapeutic modalities (quantity)
 educational content, materials provided / information gains
 number of patient (carer) choice points (potential - exercised)
Incidents of positive risk taking
Increase in health literacy
Co-ordination effectiveness
Self-care - autonomy, decision making
Patient (carer) as budget holder
Patient as record holder and direct data source (telecare - data entrant)
Carer involvement
Health : Social care (main dependency, ratio, index)
The number of disparate care philosophies encountered
Diagnoses
Diagnostic investigations complex (location, time)
Declarative success: agreed plan - success?
The geographic encounter footprint
Duration of engagement
Follow-up - care continuity care
Care Disintegration - safety
 care interrupts^# (falls, errors)
 relapse, readmission
 dependency (deferred discharge)
Influence of public engagement - involvement in local health services^*


While many of the above might qualify as candidates for a measure of integrated care, you have to wonder whether in order to measure integration you must measure everything else. It appears here at least that integration and complexity are closely related. Several of the items above might individually represent - and no doubt do - indices of various kinds that also beg definition (e.g., co-ordination, success, philosophies, episode ...).

Although I've referred to 'numbers' you could no doubt refine the list by consulting the literature and considering the quantitative : qualitative mix.

Perhaps the key indicator of integrated care isolates the primary concepts for the person concerned and then fuses those within the INTERPERSONAL and POLITICAL care domains (policy touches would be one example)?

^*How does a measure of integration incorporate those socially excluded?
^#For want of a better word.