Dispatches from the hi-blogs.info krew

NI2009 workshop on PHRs, Health 2.0, virtual worlds June 30, 2009

Scott Erdley, Peter Murray and Heather Strachan are leading a workshop titled ‘Personal health records (PHR), Health 2.0, Virtual Worlds (and more!)’. The workshop aims to exxplore increasingly patient-driven, as opposed to provider-driven PHRs, and to explore issues and ideas around the implications of Web 2.0/Health 2.0, and also of virtual worlds such as Second Life.

We will be making our slides available later on Slideshare.

Peter gave an overview of some models of PHR that exist; he covered AHIMA, HIMSS and Markle Foundation views, as well as covering issues around Google Health etc.

Heather Strachan presented on eHealth in Scotland – about 2.5% of NHS Scotland budget spent on ehealth. Scotland has some of worst health problems in Europe, and has many inequalities. There are issues in devolved government and having a different political party running Scottish government as opposed to UK ruling party. Vision for ehealth is around expoiting the power of electronic information – also aim to improve health literacy so as to support individuals maintaining their own health status. Scotland not creating one single large database due to security/privacy issues – so architectural vision is based around a virtual electronic record gathering data from different sources. ‘Windows’ into services and communications systems and single sign-in system; also use unique patient identifiers. Patients and providers contribute to content of the health record, and there is inter-relationship between patient and clinical portals. Patients want self-management tools for long-term conditions, decision support to manage health as well as health information.

Heather presented examples, inc. www.clinicaldecisions.scot.nhs.uk, the Babylink special care baby unit portal in Edinburgh, ‘my diabetes my way’, renal patient view, NHS 24 (telephone triage system), etc.

Peter then covered descriptions of Web 2.0 and Health 2.0.

Scott presented some uses of Second Life for health. He gave an overview of what Second Life (SL) is, and some other virtual world tools. He gave examples of ways in which people see themselves differently in SL, its use for health conditions, and repositories of information and links.

After the presentations, there was a a very good, dynamic discussion, with interactions from many of those attending the workshop.