When as an established user I compare my clinical information system to that used by my patients, their carers and those of colleagues in the interdistrict multidisciplinary team, my practise and studies reveal how far (our) health information systems have progressed. The systems (if we can still call them that) are all different. Yes different, even if the supplier is the same. It is not just the supplier, procurement process and overall appearance, but the dynamics of the interfaces with their data-information-knowledge views that now bleed semantically. Instead of the multiaxial nature of health care spearing us with its complexity, at last the domain perspectives simplify and clear vision and apprehension. The systems vary to the extent that the purposes represented could be something other than 'health', something other than the requirement. Today the purposes, our purposes are - more than ever - manifold. Whether desktop, smart-mobile, kiosk, tablet, pervasive, device bound, everyware or wearable the information systems must suit each of us individually according to our roles, clearances, purposes, use-history and info-literacy. The common features of the systems - what we do not see - are what really matter. They are becoming transparent; namely - safety, standards, fitness of purpose, usability, accessibility, but let's be ambitious, if not greedy, and add to that outcomes and reporting for all who really do need to know.
Ms. Florence Seacole Mashaba*. 3rd Year Student Nurse
Keynote address 2nd February 1000hrs
Global Conceptual Frameworks for Health & Education:
1st International Conference on Visualization in Care Models, Assessment and Evaluation.
St Francis Bay, South Africa. Monday 2nd - Thursday 5th, February, 2015.
Additional link:
RCN, Make IT SAFE, 2008
GANM - Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery
* Personal communication from a future fictitious individual. ;-)
