NWEH returns to Cardiff for the Digital Health Assembly 2015

Healthcare and informatics professionals gathered in Cardiff this week to discuss innovation, interoperability and the challenges and opportunities around big data.

Wales's Deputy Minister for Health, Vaughan Gething AM, urged the country to 'think big on technology' to drive innovation - something NorthWest EHealth can help to support - and deliver 'prudent healthcare'.

In his keynote Michael Schrage, research fellow at MIT Centre for Digital Business, called for healthcare to learn from advances in other sectors; including using network effects, designing solutions that improve with use and that are interoperable. He also called for greater emphasis to be placed on networks and people - and for healthcare to consider what value it is important to create.

Other key sessions at the conference included the National Virtual Incubator Network discussing the road to the Welsh Care Records Service, who again emphasised the need for interoperability, and the WHO's Dr Tevfik Üstün highlighting important considerations in the trustworthy re-use of health data.

Dr Üstün cautioned against the volume of big data available, stating that we need to be able to use data before we share it. The fact that many organisations measure this data doesn't mean that they are using it, Üstün said; we need more intelligent analysis. These factors all feed into the level of trust the public has in healthcare systems sharing data.

The Digital Health Assembly tackled several thorny issues in healthcare informatics, including huge culture shifts, and the growing need for regulation and certification to preserve trust.

Gwyn Thomas, from the UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals called for colleagues to create a professional body to boost their reputation and improve the public's perception of their work.