The innovative use of modern technology to promote health and prevent illness is the subject of a national conference being held in Inverness next month.

P4 Digital Healthcare Convention

Anyone interested in attending or finding out more can visit the event website at http://www.digitalhealthcareevent.com/

Doctors, researchers, technical experts and business people will share their expertise at the P4 Digital Healthcare Convention, organised by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), on Friday, October 1, at the city’s Eden Court Theatre.

HIE believes the Highlands and Islands has a unique potential to create a new cluster of healthcare businesses specialising in developing and using technology to deliver both prevention and treatment over large distances.

As a largely mountainous region with a widely-scattered mainland population and almost 100 inhabited islands, it is also a location which stands to benefit most from healthcare innovation.

Dr Steven Dodsworth, Head of Life Sciences with HIE, explained: “P4 is a term used by health professionals to describe an approach which combines prevention, prediction, personalisation and participation.

“We’re particularly interested in the role technology can play in helping people take charge of their own healthcare in a rural region like the Highlands and Islands.

“Health professionals, technologists and business people all see telehealthcare, as it’s called, as a growth area for the coming years and we believe the Highlands and Islands is ideally placed to reap both the health benefits and economic growth.

“Life sciences is a growing sector across the world which is already worth over £130m and supports around 1,800 jobs in the Highlands and Islands alone.

“We see telehealthcare as an important niche in that sector which can develop significantly over the coming years.”

October’s convention is a follow-up to a highly successful Telehealthcare summit which the development organisation held in the summer.

That event helped define a vision for developing a new telehealthcare industry in Scotland, with HIE playing a central role in helping forge collaborative links between the worlds of healthcare, science and business.

It also highlighted new equipment to monitor road accident casualties, life saving diagnostic devices for mountain rescue teams, and software to enable more care at home for people with long-term conditions.

The upcoming convention is aimed at healthcare professionals, industry and patient groups and has been planned to be highly participative.

In addition to hearing expert speakers, those attending will be able to raise questions and share their own knowledge in small workshops throughout the day.

Speakers: “Why here, why now?”

• Ruaraidh MacNeil (HIE): The Inverness Campus Development
• Professor Alasdair Munro (Centre for Health Science): A Centre for P4 Healthcare?
• Professor Dave Godden (University of Aberdeen): The Dot Rural Project
• Andrew Fowlie (chair of the Moray Community Health and Social Care Partnership): Why change is needed
• Dr Doug McKendrick & Professor Grant Cumming (NHS Grampian): P4 digital healthcare in practice
• Andrew Milner (H-I Network): Open Innovation

Workshops: “When worlds collide”

• Healthcare meets the creative industries: hosted by Glasgow School of Art. A vision of Scottish telehealthcare in 2020 suggests a major role for the creative industries in healthcare.
• Web science meets P4: hosted by Professor Grant Cumming (NHS Grampian & UHI). The World Wide Web has become a central feature in our lives and will become of increasing importance in P4 healthcare.
• P4 and PR: hosted by Webber Shandwick. Effective communication will be necessary to realise the benefits of P4 teleheathcare. This workshop will explore the issues involved in such communication.

Anyone interested in attending or finding out more can visit the event website at http://www.digitalhealthcareevent.com/

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

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.

Connected Health Symposium 2009 Wrap-up

I attended the Connected Health Symposium last week in Boston and got a healthy dose of the past, present and future in health care connectivity, connectedness and connections.  As always, I enjoyed connecting in person with a whole host of folks I know online — including those who know my twitter handle, @healthblawg, better than my name.

The conference was kicked off by Stuart Altman, who regaled us with tales of his days with the Nixon Administration, and made a couple of key points:

• The health care spending crisis is cased by rising prices, not rising utilization
• Any federal health insurance reform will cause cost-shifting to the privately insured, the states, the young
• Therefore the key to successful reform lies in reforming the payment system as well as the delivery system; otherwise we’re “trying to grow flowers in a toxic environment.”
• Value-based purchasing (P4P), gainsharing, global payments are reasonable options for payment reform
• Incentives for providers to use home-based systems will help heal the system at large, and promote connected health, which in turn promotes quality and efficiency

(But n.b.: while remote monitoring and home care will improve quality and reduce cost overall, it is not necessarily cost-effective for every patient.)

To read the rest of Connected Health Symposium 2009 Wrap-up

Even although you are not there you can follow along with what is happening at the Connected Health Symposium in Boston on Twitter.  Use the hash tag #cch09 and search twitter. You will be able to follow the stream. There are already updates of the sessions from yesterday.

Cambridge Wireless Healthcare Special Interest Group will tackle some hard questions facing healthcare systems around the world during its ‘Mobile Health’ seminars at TechnologyWorld09 (23 to 24 November).

The UK is at the forefront of the health technology sector, developing solutions to address issues facing ageing developed economies, growly sophisticated developing economies and public expenditure constraints

With NHS’s high level of IT investment 98% of British GPs use IT systems for electronic medical records. According to NHS Connecting for Health technology, has saved the NHS at least £208 million.

During UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI) TechnologyWorld09 speakers from Hidalgo, Orange, University of Birmingham, MiLife and iPLATO Healthcare will debate how the UK’s wireless technology sector will help primary care, hospital, social care and consumer products.

Themes explored includes wireless in health monitoring in tough environments, e-health, body area networks, a revolution in personalised preventative health systems and linking GPs and their patients for efficiency and health promotion.

Cambridge Wireless CEO Soraya Jones said:

”Cambridge Wireless is delighted to work with UKTI to deliver a world class series of seminars on mobile health. These seminars will address and tackle the issues on the use of technology to help the increasing ageing society of our future.”

The Cambridge Wireless Healthcare Special Interest Group seminars are championed by Networks for Independent Living’s David Cudby, TTP Group’s Michael Lukin, Cambridge Consultants’ Paul Williamson, CSR’s Arif Rahman and Airwave Solutions’ Justin Paul.

Delegates attending TechnologyWorld09 can register to attend the seminars as part of the meeting booking system.

TechnologyWorld09 is one of the UK’s largest technology meet-the-buyer events. The two-day event at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry gives British firms a platform to build international business. Over 200 delegates have already signed up. Last year TechnologyWorld09 generated an estimated £30 million in business deals for attending companies.

For more information on the Cambridge Wireless Healthcare Special Interest Group seminars visit http://scottishhealthcare.co.uk/tw09