Informatics in Primary Care - journal

Informatics in Primary Care Journal

On Wednesday I visited HC2014. Having the week off and with the event literally on the doorstep (London in 2015) it was very convenient.

I'd received an email the evening before on the new informatics federation and heard the official announcement in the opening session. My last HC event was 2005, my first 1986 also in Manchester if I remember correctly.

I posted the federation news this morning. On the BCS stand I picked up a copy of the INFORMATICS IN PRIMARY CARE.

This journal is open access. Despite the title and perhaps illustrative of the dependencies within and need to integrate health (and social care) the journal's coverage is broad and inclusive:

We are interested in how computerised medical records can better record the clinical status of patients and can be used to measure the quality, safety and efficiency of health care professionals and organisations – including primary care, hospital, mental health, and social and community care.  The scope of the journal also includes integrated care and how genetic data might be used to enhance health care.

I will reflect a little more on HC2014 soon.

Finding space in Hay-on-Wye: Complexity & healthcare - book

This time last week I was in Hay-on-Wye the book town on the border of England and Wales. February is still pretty cold, a good excuse to really browse.

complexity and healthcare - book cover

Amongst some great finds were three books on complexity in primary care and medicine.

I am sure that the way complexity can be woven within Hodges' model are manifold. On page 4 of Sweeney & Griffiths: 

Using the idea of multidimensional phase space can help us understand categories of disease without clear boundaries. Instead of thinking of a person's illness as a walled off and separate pigeon hole, it can be useful to think of it as a point within a multidimensional illness space.

Kieran Sweeney, Frances Griffiths (eds). (2002) Complexity and healthcare: an introduction. Radcliffe Medical Press Ltd.

Clusters of empathy

There still is Complexity in Primary Care group but it is now essentially silent. I've met several people through the group over the years.

It might be decades since James Gleick's book Chaos (1987) and yet there is plenty of mileage left in complexity. One of the people I met through the group and hoped to meet in Australia at the ICN Congress is Paul Bennett who informed me of the following paper:

Academic Psychiatry, 33:6, Nov-Dec 2009 p.489

Winseman, J., Malik, A., Morison, J., Balkoski, V. (2009) Students’ Views on Factors Affecting Empathy in Medical Education. Academic Psychiatry. 33:484–491.

In explaining Hodges' model to Paul he was struck by the conceptual clustering in this paper. It isn't that there is a direct match between the paper's figure 2 and the care (knowledge) domains of the model, but multidimensional scaling is a potential tool to explore Hodges' model too.

The influence of political factors in medical education might be another aspect to consider. This is a dimension Hodges' model can encompass.

An acute concern at present in the NHS is the prospect of a seven day service, necessitating changes to the contracts of doctors and other disciplines.

Thanks to:
Paul Bennett, Primary Health Care Education Officer
Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health - Broken Hill
PO Box 457, BROKEN HILL NSW 2880
http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/drh/

British Computer Society: the Digital Doctor Conference Dec 2012

Dear British Computer Society Health Member,

We would like to invite you to attend the following event supported by BCS Health at the BCS office in Covent Garden, London:

The Digital Doctor, 1-2 Dec, Covent Garden, BCS London

This conference is organised by a small group of doctors with the aim of helping clinicians harness technology to become better doctors.

On Saturday we will teach you to use technology and tools to make everyday tasks such as email, audits, task management, keeping up with literature, collaborative working and research, more efficient and fun.

On Sunday we will be introducing app creation - how to do it, what is involved and how to convince others to help you do it. We will demystify the software development process and teach you how to bend technology to meet your needs. We will also shed light on how NHS IT works (or doesn't work)!.

We also hope that you can share tips and tricks with us before and during the event. You can attend either days but we hope to see you during both!

More Information here: http://thedigitaldoc.co.uk/
Sign up here: http://thedigitaldoctor-estw.eventbrite.co.uk/

Find us on twitter: @thedigidoc
Twitter Hashtag: #thedigitaldoctor

Please forward this email on and find a link to a flyer that you can freely distribute
Link to flyer: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/640094/TheDigitalDoctor.pdf

RCN nursing journals are now available through HINARI

Dear All,

I am pleased to share that, as of last month, the journals published by the Royal College of Nursing (UK) are now available through HINARI, which means that HINARI users can now access the following journals:-

- Cancer Nursing Practice
- Emergency Nurse
- Learning Disability Practice
- Mental Health Practice
- Nurse Researcher
- Nursing Children and Young People Nursing Management
- Nursing Older People
- Nursing Standard
- Primary Health Care

This brings the total number of nursing journals available via HINARI to 172, including journals from BMJ Publishing, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Informa Healthcare, John Wiley, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Mary Ann Liebert, Sage, SLACK, and Thieme.

Best wishes to all.

Richard Gedye
Publisher Co-ordinator
Research4Life

My source:
HIFA2015 Health Information For All by 2015