Sharing the Experience: Informatics and Research in Healthcare Practice Conference held 13 Feb 2001 Personal Review by Rod Ward

The Nurses & Therapists Informatics Conference “Sharing the Experience: Informatics and Research in Healthcare Practice” was jointly organised by the British Computer Society Nursing Specialist Group (NSG) and the Foundation for Nursing Studies (FONS). It was held at the Commonwealth Institute Resource Centre, Kensington High Street, London.

The intention of the day was to highlight key current areas and encourage those with ongoing or recently completed projects to present their work.

The morning session was chaired by Theresa Shaw (Professional Development Officer, FONS.) who welcomed delegates and set out the programme for the day. Theresa and her team from FONS also coordinated the domestic arrangemenets and organised the evaluation forms, delegate packs etc. The FONS team also handled the pre-conference adminsitration, promotion and bookings etc.

The first speaker was Prof Dame June Clark (University of Wales, Swansea) who focused on the need to incorporate informatics into nursing core agenda's, in particular into clinical practice, clinical governance and outcome measurement. She highlighted the contribution of informatics to nursing knowledge and research, and identifying areas where research is urgently needed. The situation in clinical practice was illustrated by a shown of hands amongst the audience showing very few from clinical practice. She compared nursing outcomes measurement with the traditional medical knowledge base and disease classification systems, arguing that we need to define nursing problems. She related this to divisions between nursing and social care.

Jean Roberts (Independent health informatics consultant, Phoenix Associates) then followed with a presentation examining the European dimensions and challenges. She described an "eclectic" Europe and highlighted current issues. Article 129 of the Maastrict treaty was identified as a barrier to integration, labelling health a local issue, however she identified several health related areas which enable, or even require, collaboration across the nation states. At the end of the presentation she plugged MedInfo 2001 http://www.medinfo2001.org/

The conference was then given details, by Peter Murray, of the Dame Phyllis Friend Award which is administered by the NSG and the 2000 winner David Wright (University of Sheffield - http://www.shef.ac.uk/~md1djw/ ) presented his award winning work - Nursing students with dyslexia: WWW support an ongoing project. He described the situation for disabled nursing students, and set out the advantages of using the web as a medium for this target group, surrounding accessibility and browser control. The structure of the site was described illustrating the importance of "vertical structure and forced march concepts" for dyslexic users. The site can be viewed at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~dis/

The afternoon session was chaired by Helen Sampson (Chair NSG, St. Richards Hospital Sussex)

The conference then divided into 2 parallel sessions, each with 4 papers.

One Concurrent Session included:

Peter Norrie (De Montford University) - The impact of a computerised clinical information system (CIS) on nursing within intensive care.

Marina Copping & John Sturgeon ( West Lothian healthcare NHS Trust) - Childrens Health at the heart of healthcare

Sue Hall ( Oxford Brookes University) - Solutions for elderly visually impaired people using the Internet.

Jean Chritianson (University of Wales, Swansea ) - A new approach to the identification and measurement of health visiting outcomes.

I attended the other concurrent session (as I was chairing it).

Mark Rouncefield (University of Lancaster) - Information technology and managerial work in a hospital trust. This paper discussed issues around the use of IT in the NHS looking at the case for change and investigating the hype. He described "ethnomethodologicallly informed ethnography" as a method coming from social anthropolgy which they used. The standpoint was to understand a phenomena by looking at how it actually is rather than theorising about it. The humorous presentation included a Billy Connelly voice over to illustrate the words from NHS managers. He also explored ideas about trust and the social processes of trust production. He related electronic information systems to the "audit culture". A key phrase was "knowing how to tell a story" and mark obviously does. For more info visit: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/mrouncepp.html

Gill Stonham (Lincolnshire Health) - Connecting research and informatics to management in the healthcare enbvironment - what does the Electronic Patient Record offer. Gill described a conceptual model underpinning deciding what need's to be in the EPR including ownership and territory issues. She examined links to level 3 EPRs focussing on the information needed for clinicians using Rockarts "Critical Success Factors Model" and outlined advantages and disadvantages.

Stephen Timmons (University of Nottingham) - "The potential contribution of social science to IT implementation in healthcare: or why you should have a sociologist on your project team" examined the human factors inn the implementation of IT in healthcare from his eclectic background. He looked at Articulation work (oiling the wheels) which is often not included into information systems, the emergence of a new theory practice gap, the use of tacit knowledge and the socially constructed record..

Andrea Cairney (Community Health Sheffield ) Using information management and information technology within community nursing caseload management. Andrea outlined her history and role as a Sheffield Health Visitor and how she set out to create a database to manage her caseload which is now used by 6 practices and it's use is being explored by district nurses and school nurses. She demonstrated the various queries which could be run on the database.

The conference then came back together for a final paper by Derek Hoy (Glasgow Caledonian University) - Research and Informatics - involving the healthcare professional. Derek described 2 projects HIPMOD and WISECARE. HIPMOD used clinical modelling to build a simulation of care following hip fracture and WISECARE involved patients and nurses involved on oncology in data collection which was then aggregated. This project also involved a network sharing & commenting on protocols of care.

In addition to the papers presented therre were some excellent poster displays available in the room used for coffee and lunch. These included;

• Roger Gamon (Salford Royal Hoppsital Trust) - Accessing an ECG database to aid decision-making in the A&E and other acute areas.
• Annette Gilmore (Brent Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Centre) - Sickle Cell Disease - Informatics to promote evidence based practice.
• Stacy Johnson (University of Nottingham) - Using a computer assisted learning package to support a taught module for first year students on an undergradtaute masters in nursing course.
• Stephen mangan (Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust) - Care pathway for the management of paracetamol overdaose in accdient and emergency department.
• Pasty Rochester (University of Bradford) & Jill Gregson, Judy Berry (Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust) - Getting reseacrh into clinical practice: A reeport on the development of a multidisciplinary clinical guideline - the management of lower limb oedema.
• Dr heather Wharrard (University of Nottingham) - "Benefits and Barriers" in the embedding of information technology skills into the nursing curricula.
• Kim Wright (Avon Professional Advisory group) - Scoping the readiness of healthcare professionals in relation to Information for Health.

The conference was well attended and the discussion showed a great deal of knowledgable networking.

The Conference was followed by the AGM of the BCS NSG.

For further information contact: Rod.Ward@Sheffield.ac.uk

Page Created: 13.2.01

Last Updated: 13.2.01