The 2010 BCS Health Scotland Annual Conference was held this year in the highest of high tech arenas, the futuristic Glasgow Science Centre.
Almost 200 delegates and exhibitors shared conference presentations from speakers from all around the world.  The Conference also provided a showcase of the very best eHealth projects in Scotland including the winners of the NHS Scotland eHealth awards.
The exhibition area showcased eHealth products from over 20 vendors with a further 15 stands on the upper floor giving public sector information from organisations such as the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Scottish Government eHealth Directorate and the NHS Scotland National Information Services Group.
The conference started on Wednesday 22nd September with keynote speakers giving presentations on eHealth as seen from the perspective of governments in Canada, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.  There were then various presentations from speakers on such topics as ‘Telehealth in Africa’,  ‘Quality improvement in eHealth in America’ and ‘eHealth in Malaysia’.  The day closed with a champagne reception for vendors, presenters and delegates held in the main exhibition hall.
On the second day the conference focussed on topics such as the ‘Welsh Individual Health Record Infrastructure’, the ‘Scottish Patient Safety Programme’ and ‘Monitoring Access to Clinical Systems’.

The day closed with the declaration of the winners in the NHS Scotland eHealth awards for 2010.  The judges for these awards were drawn from the exceedingly knowledgeable pool of field experts in the UK.  The award winners were as follows:-

Best NHS Scotland IT Service Delivery Team which was awarded to the project lead team at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde team for their Strathclyde Electronic Renal Patient Record project.

Best NHS Scotland eHealth initiative supporting quality improvement of patient service or outcomes which was awarded to the NHS Ayrshire and Arran team for their project entitled ‘ eHealth systems to support clinical outcomes measurement and service improvement’.

Best NHS Scotland use of innovative IT for Patient Care which went to the team from NHS Highland with their ‘Telehealth for Long Term conditions in Argyll and Bute’ project.

At the close of an extremely busy and successful conference the Chair of the BCS Health Scotland Specialist Group, Dr Paul Woolman, was pleased to announce that the 2011 conference will be held in mid September at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

The programme has been controversial because of cost and delays

The government has announced £700m of savings in the national IT programme for the NHS in England, cutting the overall cost from £12.7bn to £11.4bn.

The cuts come on top of £600m of savings already announced by the previous government.

The programme was designed to create a national computer infrastructure for the health service.

It includes electronic booking of appointments, digital X-rays and electronic prescriptions.

Teething problems

In a statement the government says all its existing contracts for parts of the IT programme will be honoured.

The remaining parts – creating a fully computerised NHS in England – will be carried out locally.

That will allow individual hospitals to buy in computer systems as long as they are able to work with the existing national structure.

The IT programme for the NHS has at times been controversial because of its cost and delays.

Some hospital chief executives have complained about teething problems when systems were introduced, and the lack of local involvement in decision making.

Read more about NHS IT cuts HERE

Only two weeks to go before the end of the earlybird discount rates for Health Informatics Scotland 2010.

Conference Dates - 22nd and 23rd September 2010

Rates start as low as £30.00 for two days!

Our conference this year will be the biggest and brightest yet! We are staging this event at the prestigious Glasgow Science Centre where you not only have great views over the Clyde and City but complementary entrance to the fun science exhibits. The futuristic building mirrors BCS Health Scotland’s innovative and forward looking approach.

Three themes this year are Quality, Innovation, and Efficiency.  We have International speakers from Australia, Canada, Sweden, America, Ireland, Malaysia making this conference the place to be in September this year.

And introducing the NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!

This exciting new development will be the ‘NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!’.  These awards are given to winning NHS teams for three categories sponsored by BCS and Scottish Government; applications are closed so come along to see the winners!

Individual credit card bookings can be made online at

http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conEvent.5294

Block bookings can be made by phone and paid by cheque direct to BCS, sorry order/invoices not possible, contact Rachel Browning Specialist Groups Events Team Leader BCS The Chartered Institute for IT First Floor, Block D, North Star House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, SN2 1FA  Tel : +44 (0) 1793 417 416

Visit the pre-conference connection map to see who is coming

Full conference details at

http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/his/events/bcs-health-scotland-conference-2010.aspx

Open for Registrations 22nd and 23rd September 2010

Register now for the most exciting eHealth conference in Scotland this year! Held at the prestigious Glasgow Science Centre you not only have a great programme, wide range of exhibitors, great views over the Clyde and City but complementary entrance to the fun science exhibits as well!

The futuristic building mirrors BCS Health Scotland’s Innovative and Modern outlook See Here

We have an extensive International speaker Programme over both days with three themes held in twin parallel tracks.

Keynote speakers include:

Matthew Swindells, former CIO Connecting for Health, and chair BCS Health

Rikard Lovstrom from Sweden to talk about their National Patient Overview project and eHealth strategy

Dorothy Whittick from Canada talking about the Canadian Health Infoway national developments and a Wellness project in Alberta

Brian Robson from Scotland on the Quality theme and his experiences with IHI in America.

Kathy Dallest from Australia speaking on Clinical Safety Management in eHealth.

New! NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!

An exciting new event will be presentation of the ‘NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!’. These awards are given to winning NHS teams for three categories sponsored by BCS and Scottish Government.

Twin Exhibitions: We are very grateful to our sponsors with 18 commercial exhibitions in a superb bright atrium area and ANOTHER FIRST: 15 public information stands in a separate gallery open to the public. There is plenty to see!

The three main themes to be addressed at the BCS Health Scotland Conference 2010 are Quality, Innovation, and Efficiency. International speakers from Australia, Canada, Sweden, America, Ireland, Wales and numerous UK speakers will position themselves on current relevant issues such as patient safety, the quality strategy, efficiency gains from IT and more.

For the first time, the NHS Scotland eHealth Awards will be presented to eHealth teams in Scotland. These awards will be presented by Scottish Government and by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, to help boost the status of the IT profession in NHS Scotland at a time of significant change.

Moreover the new Vidiowiki delegate social networking tool will be used for linking up delegates before and after the event. Users can navigate a mind-map of delegates, speakers and exhibitors to create linkups and watch short clips about presentations and demos. This will help planning and networking before coming to the event.

A selection of posters will be available to view during the conference:

• A novel security risk assessment model – Napier University
• Clinical content modeling – NHS National Services Scotland
• Trans-national exchange of eHealth innovations in northern Europe- Aberdeen University
• A Study to evaluate the effectiveness of an electronic dashboard – Ulster hospital
• A Study to evaluate the response times for alerts – Ulster hospital

Around 250 participants are expected to take part in this open event. Online registration is possible here. Details about fees and early bird registration can be found online.

A draft programme for the event can be found online at the event website.

Exhibitors are also leading a fun social evening at 5pm on the first day.

Yet again BCS Health Scotland has been able to produce all this for the incredibly low delegate registration prices starting as low as £30.

So register soon for the early bird rates, find us here BCS Health Scotland Conference

By Nick Triggle
Health reporter, BBC News

Electronic patient care records will require an “enormous effort” and a “high cost” to fulfil their potential, a study warns.

University College London researchers said the project had been dogged by technology problems and tensions which had led to delays.

They said early evidence from users also suggested benefits were limited.

The new government backed e-records, but said it was right to review the way they were being rolled out.

The development of a medical records database for 50m patients in England is a central plank of the £12bn upgrade of the NHS’s IT systems.

The basic patient record – known as the summary care record – includes information on allergies, medication and adverse reactions.

Further details may be added over time and it will be accessible to healthcare workers anywhere in the NHS eventually.

Problems

Problems have dogged the scheme for years with GPs raising concerns about patient confidentiality and safety.

To date, just 1.2m patients have had their records uploaded although 30m have received letters informing them about the system.

The UCL team interviewed patients and professionals involved with the project as well as analysing data from a range of sources during the research.

It found there had been difficulties over what should actually be included in the records, while ensuring GP records were complete and accurate had been a “huge task”.

Transferring data had also proved problematic because of incompatible computer systems.

All this meant that extra costs in terms of staff time and financial investment were being incurred, researchers said.

This may even lead to the programme going over the £200m budget, the BBC understands.

The report was also critical of the opt-out system. Patients are allowed to stop their records being uploaded, but less than 1% of those who were written to have done this.

Click the link for more information about Health e-records

The new network will help NHS staff share knowledge

An online database that will allow NHS staff to share information has been unveiled by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

The Knowledge Network will include a “Google-style” search engine with access to a huge bank of educational resources as well as personal space for employees to gather information.

The network will be managed by NHS Education for Scotland (NES).

It aims to save staff time and bring online resources together in one place.

The Scottish government said the resource did not include access to patients’ records but was designed to support the information needs of the health and social care workforce.

The network website includes community spaces in areas as diverse as psychiatry, bereavement, community care, ethics and general practice.

The Knowledge Network builds on the NHS Scotland e-Library, which was developed in 2003.

NES programme director for knowledge services Dr Ann Wales said: “The new service provides even more comprehensive and user-friendly knowledge support for direct patient care, clinical practice, learning, workforce development and research.

“It now also reaches out to administrative, clerical and support staff as well as to partners in the social care and voluntary sectors.”

Read the full article HERE

LONDON – 12 May, 2010 – Business analytics solutions are considered the face of business intelligence (BI) for healthcare providers, as they assist healthcare managers and hospital management to compile, arrange and manage clinical, financial and administrative data in a defined protocol, thereby facilitating informed business decisions. The European healthcare sector has mostly adopted activity-based payments. The current trend is that of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), which help hospitals minimise patient visits to their premises, increasing the need for efficient analytics solutions. Pay-for-performance initiatives have further fuelled the demand for business analytics systems in the European healthcare sector.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.healthcareIT.frost.com), European Markets for Business Analytics in Healthcare, finds that the markets earned revenues of $205.4 million in 2009 and estimates this to reach $462.1 million in 2016. The segments of the business analytics solution markets covered are the financial and administrative module analytics solutions.

“Business analytics solutions provide a substantial return-on-investment (ROI) for healthcare organisations, thereby driving the adoption rates of these systems in Europe,” says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst S. Priyan. “These solutions allow the user to control operating costs and streamline revenues.”

Effective healthcare business analytics solutions, along with BI solutions, provide ROIs ranging from 100-300 per cent. This is extremely significant to the already cost-sensitive healthcare sector. Furthermore, it enhances the overall workflow efficiency of healthcare management.

However, stringent hospital budgets towards information technology (IT) deployment challenge the growth of the European markets for business analytics in healthcare. Hospitals’ IT budgets spent on infrastructure and devices reduce the investments in IT systems.

“On an average, the IT budget of a hospital is about 1.5 per cent of its total annual expenditure which is extremely low when compared to the budgets allocated towards devices and other hospital infrastructure,” explains Priyan. “IT continues to be considered as expenditure rather than an investment.”

Hospitals should increase their investments in IT and procure more cost-effective systems that provide greater value for money.

“The IT expenditure of the hospitals should be stepped-up to at least to 3.0 to 3.5 per cent of their total annual expenditure,” concludes Priyan. “Additionally, the vendors should enhance the value proposition provided by the systems so that the hospitals get value for the expenses incurred.”

Summary Care Records are central to the NHS computer upgrade in England

The development of a medical records database for patients in England has been halted in some areas after doctors criticised the speed of the roll-out.

The British Medical Association warned the computer-based summary care records are being set up at “break-neck speed”, sometimes without patients’ knowledge.

In time, data for 50 million patients will be uploaded to a central system.

The Department of Health said the roll-out would be delayed until there was better awareness of the scheme.

The plans to computerise patients’ records in England have raised concerns about security and patient confidentiality.

Doctors have also been unenthusiastic about the technology.

We will want to work with government in future to ensure that the many concerns of patients and doctors are listened to and addressed Dr Grant Ingrams, BMA

More than 1.25 million patients’ records have already gone onto the database and in December, ministers announced that the process was being speeded up in some areas.

Patients in those areas have been getting letters about the new database, telling them to inform their GP if they want to opt out.

But the BMA wrote to the government warning that it was happening too fast and calling for a suspension.

They said the rushed implementation meant GPs didn’t have time to help patients make an informed choice about whether to opt out.

Ministers said they were surprised by the criticism when there had previously been complaints that the changes had been happening too slowly.

Click the link to read more about summary care records

22nd and 23rd September 2010

Glasgow Science Centre www.glasgowsciencecentre.org

Giving you advance notice that our conference this year will be the biggest and brightest yet! We are staging this event at the prestigious Glasgow Science Centre where you not only have great views over the Clyde and City but complementary entrance to the fun science exhibits. The futuristic building mirrors BCS Health Scotland’s innovative and forward looking approach..

We have three themes this year which are quality, innovation, and efficiency.

Keynote speakers include:

Matthew Swindells, former CIO Connecting for Health, and chair BCS Health

Rikard Lovstrom from Sweden to talk about their National Patient Overview project and eHealth strategy

Dorothy Whittick from Canada talking about the Canadian Health Infoway national developments and a Wellness project in Alberta

Brian Robson from Scotland on the Quality theme and his experiences from the USA.

PRESENTATIONS INVITED – Do you have something interesting to present in one of our themes ?

To get in touch please use the contact form

Exhibitions confirmed include:

Exhibitors are staging a social networking evening after the first day events so look out for a fun time as well as stimulating and thought provoking discussions.

If you would like to Exhibit please contact Neil Campbell using the contact form

NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!

An exciting new departure will be the ‘NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!’.  These awards are given to winning NHS teams for three categories sponsored by BCS and Scottish Government, look out for an announcement in the next few weeks.