Dementia care: communication in nursing homes

In nursing home liaison the importance of communication quickly asserts itself (as it does throughout health and social care). As an organisation effective communication is evident (or should be) at all levels:

• Corporate: across the 'group'
• Management: within the home
• Clinical: continuity of care between shifts, days - nights
• Care staff and residents - especially those with challenging behaviour
• The care home (staff), relatives and community

This week and as also recognised for colleagues in the future, my role will focus on education. In particular reviewing the background, theory and practice of communication with people who are more severely disabled by this condition. I've sixteen slides as a guide, a lesson plan but I will be using a flipchart (arriving early to scribble away) with the intent to engage the audience. Given my pre-occupation with information I want to mix and match as follows:

1. Use information as a central concept, not technically but personally as per self-awareness, knowledge and orientation, person-centred care.
2. Have people contemplate communication in a practical sense.
3. Finally, obviously ensure that what is discussed and shared is directly related to their work, the care needs and challenges of the residents (and families?).

On the information front I'm sure I can employ the conventional and simplified communication model:

SENDER - channel - RECEIVER

This may appear mechanistic but it's an effective way to highlight the real difference that Health Care Support Workers - and indeed family and friends can make to resident's lives. Referring to this model I can demonstrate the very upsetting inequalities that are often found here. The audience can contrast themselves as SENDER and RECEIVER with each other and in care scenarios.

We will identify and acknowledge the deficits that people living with dementia must contend with and endure. This is to review previous learning and ensure staff fully appreciate the care situation. More positively the session will stress the role of staff as builders and agents of personalised care with a great contribution to make.

1. They can consider (critically) the care environment - yes the 'home' - as the source of potential noise. 
2. When there is an imbalance in the capabilities, comprehension and meaning between SENDER and RECEIVER skilled, insightful, and patient staff can compensate, addressing the person's unique needs.

If there are matters that cannot be resolved then these 'risks to person-centred care' should be carried forward to management: a prescription that must be repeated as necessary. With the purported high rate of staff turnover in homes (is that a myth - what are the figures really?) they should be able to leverage these FFIs - frequent first impressions - from new staff, before they are also part of the furniture.

Allied with this is a request for support in person-centred care. For me these two go together and it's good that this 2nd session follows tomorrow. This is an opportunity to introduce the Health Care Domains Model and build upon the points raised and factor in the questions and issues raised by the staff.

Critically across all these layers of comms is: Leadership. A key part of that of course is recognising training needs and pursuing change.

Call for Papers - 2011 CHI Workshop on Bridging Practices, Theories, and Technologies to Support Reminiscence

CALL FOR PAPERS

CHI Workshop on Bridging Practices, Theories, and Technologies to Support Reminiscence 2011
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~danco/remchiwork/

CHI 2011 Workshop

This one-day workshop explores how HCI-related practice and research can understand and support reminiscence. The workshop has two main goals. First, we hope to bring together academics and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, levels of experience, and approaches to studying and supporting reminiscing. Second, we hope to explore a variety of topics around current and potential uses of technology to support reminiscence, including but not limited to:

- understanding people's current practices around reminiscing;
- exploring empirical studies and theories of memory that might inform technology designs;
- presenting, critiquing, and evaluating existing technologies for reminiscence,
- considering how technology might support new reminiscing practices, and
- supporting social aspects of reminiscence.

We are particularly interested in participants from outside the CHI community to foster new perspectives and collaborations. Our plan is to conduct three short discussion-focused panels organized around participants' interests. Those discussions will ground small groups in articulating interesting directions, studies, designs, and outlines of potential grant and book proposals at the intersection of reminiscing and technology

SUBMISSION

Interested participants should mail position papers of up to 6 pages in .pdf versions of the CHI Extended Abstracts format to danco at cs.cornell.edu by January 14, 2011. Papers should clearly express how the authors' participation will further the goals of the workshop: what do authors offer and hope to gain by participating? They should also clearly, but briefly, present participating authors' backgrounds, in order to support our goals of creating a diverse group of participants.

We will notify accepted participants on or before February 11, 2001. A limited amount of funding will be available, primarily to support attendance for people from other disciplines who are not regular CHI attendees. The workshop will be held on Sunday May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011 conference.

IMPORTANT DATES

- Jan 14, 2011: Position papers due
- Feb 11, 2011: Notifications of participation
- Apr 1, 2011: Final versions of position papers (to be shared with other participants)
- May 8, 2011: (Sunday) The workshop! (Here's the list of all workshops.)
- May 9-12 2011: CHI itself

ORGANIZERS

- Dan Cosley, Information Science, Cornell University danco at cs.cornell.edu
- Maurice Mulvenna, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster md.mulvenna at ulster.ac.uk
- Victoria Schwanda, Information Science, Cornell University vls48 at cornell.edu
- S. Tejaswi Peesapati, Information Science, Cornell University stp53 at cornell.edu

h2cm: Globalization, Accommodation theory and Relativism (Grayling, 2010)

From A.C. Grayling's Ideas that Matter, 2010, Phoenix.

Globalization: p. 235-236.

A more neutral account of globalization describes it as the process of making things known, done, available or possessed worldwide - such as Internet access, telecommunications, medical knowledge and benefits such as vaccines, transport technologies, political ideas, art and music, books and much besides.

Grayling also explains how the increased distribution associated with globalization is unequal, hence the sense of injustice that is felt resulting in protest.

The health care domains model is concerned with making things known - helping to make knowledge available on a personal, group and family level. This is no Mercator projection, not even Peter's projection but it is a global map.

Accommodation theory: p. 3-5.

Accommodation theory states that when people talk to each, they adjust their behaviour and manner of speech to take account of (to accommodate themselves to) the topic, the circumstances, and the other people engaged with them in conversation.

There are many theories to explain how we communicate and thereby model(?) ourselves, others and the world. Imagine a doctor's surgery and the morning's clinical consultations, it is easy to envisage the role that accommodation routinely plays. The one-to-one conversation (dialogue, argumentation, debate) can be extended, and viewed as the combined chatter, the whole series of multidisciplinary Q&A with the breaks (the silences when we are listening!). Accommodation theory has proved of value in multiculturalism, especially on policy concerning immigration and integration. p.5

The care domains provide an ethnoculturally neutral space (it could be argued) for the accommodations that are demanded in the 21st Century. 

Relativism: p.433.

There is a distinction to be drawn between moral or cultural relativism, on the one hand, and cognitive relativism on the other. The former concerns the difference between cultures, or between different historical phases of the same culture, with respect to religious, social, and moral values and practices, that is, with respect to what might be called the 'superstructure' of the culture's conceptual scheme. Cognitive relativism concerns the 'infrastructure', the level of basic beliefs about the world, such as that there are perception-independent, re-identifiable and individually discriminable objects or events, occupying space and time, interacting causally, and bearing properties of various kinds.

Much is said of the games that people play. Whether the care domains model provides a game board that can accommodate both the super- and infrastructural conceptual levels is open to question. In the health career model the infrastructure level concepts are light - as we find that they reside in the upper part of the model: perceived, individually discriminable (INTRApersonal) objects occupying space and time (SCIENCES) with mass, weight, inertia. ... The political domain prompts access to values and how these shape the total conceptual landscape(s), the conversations and silences that go on there ...

The Empowered Patient Conference

HIFA2015 brought this conference to my attention rather late, but it is nonetheless well worth posting. Indirectly for the health career model, which can facilitate patient and carer education and empowerment. In addition to demonstrating the global potential of h2cm this announcement also demonstrates how small the world is becoming. I had the pleasure of hearing Mark Duman present in Manchester at a local BCS medical informatics meeting in the spring. I've since maintained a link to the Patient Information Forum here on W2tQ and Links III - 'Patients, Carers & Self-Care'.

If you are organising a conference or event for 2011 ... please let me know. I may be able to assist with free publicity on the care domain pages interpersonal, sciences, political or sociology - especially if your themes are similar: nursing, informatics, education, global health, self-care. ...

HELP is pleased to organize The Empowered Patient Conference in Mumbai on 20 October. The website is at http://www.patientpower.in/

Traditionally, Indian patients were passive and were quite happy to leave all medical decisions to the doctor. However, times have changed, and internet positive patients are hungry for information and want to work in partnership with their doctor. This is a huge challenge - and a great opportunity as well. We feel patients are the largest untapped health care resource and that Information Therapy is Powerful Medicine!

In partnership with the Patient Information Forum, UK, HELP is organizing The Empowered Patient Conference. Our keynote speaker will be Mr Mark Duman, President of PiF:
http://www.pifonline.org.uk/home/

Information Therapy can help patients (and health insurance companies!) save money on medical care by:

1. Promoting SelfCare and helping them to do as much for themselves as they can.
2. Helping them with Evidence-Based Guidelines, so that they can ask for the right medical treatment that they need - no more and no less.
3. Helping them with Veto Power, so they can say No to medical care they don’t need, thus preventing overtesting and unnecessary surgery.

Information Therapy is good for doctors and hospitals as well, as patients who are well-informed have realistic expectations of their treatment. They are much more likely to have a good medical outcome and much less likely to sue.

How can we all work together - doctors, patients, hospitals, health insurance companies and IT companies, to ensure that patients are at the heart of everything we do in healthcare?

Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD
Medical Director
HELP - Health Education Library for People
Excelsior Business Center,
National Insurance Building,
Ground Floor, Near Excelsior Cinema,
206, Dr.D.N Road, Mumbai 400001

Helping patients to talk to doctors! Information Therapy is the Best Prescription!
Read over 20 health books free at www.helpforhealth.org
Read my blog about improving the doctor-patient
Relationship at http://doctorandpatient.blogspot.com/
Join India’s first health wiki at www.myhealthpedia.in

Naivety [I] ever unfolding : ever present - SCIENCES

naivety [naɪˈiːvtɪ], naiveté, naïveté [ˌnɑːiːvˈteɪ]n pl -ties, -tés

1. the state or quality of being naive; ingenuousness; simplicity

2. a naive act or statement

My source:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/naivety

There are times when we are all naive. It can be so embarrassing! When you realise, or more severely are made aware by others the abrupt learning is suddenly resolved. Within the bounds of the health career model, naivety can be found and is expressed in so many ways.

Hodges' model may appear naive in its simplicity, but behind that simplicity there are several assumptions. When you act as scribe, reader or doer you exercise the model's structure. You potentially demonstrate several levels of literacy.

If the health career model can represent most 'everything', then naivety should be no problem. So, if we visit each of the care domains in turn what can we find?

SCIENCES

I came across a post: 'We are all naive scientists' on The Financial Philosopher blog which includes this quote:

"It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings." ~ Paul Feyerabend

Regularly, I ask myself if I am naive in this particular domain. Am I right to assume that there are questions in nursing that can be answered (or at least reflected upon) using Hodges' model? Furthermore, can this use, this application be demonstrated in a scientific (evidenced) way?

Does experience of programming in BBC Basic as an enthusiast really help equip me now to get to grips with PHP, using Drupal and even Ruby?

Is information (and informatics) really the all encompassing Swiss army knife of a concept I take it to be?

The most extreme naivety here is not mine, however; it is as Feyerabend suggests the one that is in diagonal opposition. It is the scientific naivety of the masses in the social domain. Is this ignorance? In some cases, yes. But the tabloid (gutter) press shouts aloud when science gets it wrong; or, more accurately industrial porcesses based on science totally mess up.

The masses are not divorced from science. True, there was (still is?) a promised intimate relationship borne of equality and egalitarian ideals (education), but this naivety matures in real (social) time also known as life-chances. Its cost is not just red-faced, but illiteracy and exclusion at a time when literacy, inclusion and engagement are paramount.

Care Logistics: have model will travel ...

From: NHS Logistics - supplies, v4m, corporate, orders, consultancy, catalogue, process, delivery, stock, just in time, service, quality, priority, efficiency, customers, finance, contracts ...
	To: Care Logistics - access, choice, attitude, empathy, communication, values, outcomes, human rights, dignity and respect, quality care, professionalism, purpose, roles, holistic competency, standards, personal, measures, equity ...

HIV/AIDS and Rights - Social Networking - The Vienna World AIDS Conference

To: Members of The CI Community Interested in HIV/AIDS and Communication
From: Warren Feek

Peter - Please Join: "HIV/AIDS Future Strategy" network at
http://groups.comminit.com/node/306528 - if you have not done so already.

Many best wishes.

I am writing in advance of the Vienna World AIDS Conference (July 18-23 2010) - an event summarised on The CI website - http://www.comminit.com/en/node/310758/347 - with an invitation to participate in dialogue on the themes of this important conference...whether you will be in Vienna or not!


The CI's Development Network Group called "HIV/AIDS Strategy: Future Directions" - http://groups.comminit.com/node/306528 - is the hub for our communication and media focused networking pertaining to the conference. This group presently has 489 members. This is complemented by the relevant HIV/AIDS Rights Knowledge within the HIV/AIDS theme site at http://comminit.com/en/hiv-aids.html

If you are not already one of them, please join the conversation! You can register here - http://groups.comminit.com/user/register - or, if already registered, join the group by going here - http://groups.comminit.com/node/306528 - and clicking on the red words "Request membership".

Thanks - it will be excellent to have you engaged.

To view communication- and media-related events happening at the Conference, please visit the HIV/AIDS Strategy: Future Directions Group's July calendar: http://groups.comminit.com/groups_calendar/306528/2010/07/all

Click on each event's name to read a description of what will be happening, where, and when. (Please note also the hyperlinked word "more"...click there to see the entire list of C4D-related events taking place each day). And please do add your own event description: Once logged in, just click on "Submit an Event" in the box on the right-hand side of the screen.

You can learn, for example, about:

* "Is AIDS Activism Dead?" (Monday July 19 2010, from 11:00-12:30, in Global Village Session Room 1)
http://groups.comminit.com/node/319719

* "Distance Based Learning Technologies: E-Health and Social Media for Clinical HIV" (Monday July 19 2010, from 14:30-18:00, in Mini Room 8)
http://groups.comminit.com/node/319802

* "'I Want My Rights Now" - A Toolkit for Young People to Advocate Successfully" (Monday July 19 2010, from 11:00-12:30, in Mini Room 3)
http://groups.comminit.com/node/319795

* and many more...

Nursing attitudes [towards patients ( and self { and ? } ) ]

In the past half-year there have been two discussions, that concern the nurse's attitude towards patients.

One was held on the nursing philosophy list in February:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=NURSE-PHILOSOPHY

"The patient is always right"

The other in May was on the mental health in higher education list:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=MHHE

"Insufferable' or 'Suffering' - a response"

Both provoked a similar response and debate. I have just reprised my post in February on the MHHE list and have copied it - with some revision - below:

<->

Patients are always a challenge in that they come in lots of 'varieties'.

This is why we recognise the need for individualised, person-centred care. One variety is trauma laden to which the full-complement of the multidisciplinary team must respond. These patients and *their* crises bring out the best in us in terms of the skills and knowledge, team work they force us to exercise.

Among the plethora of other varieties there are those who are viewed as 'problems'. Like the Pepsi ad of decades ago they are variously and pejoratively described as multiple attending, attention seeking, patience sapping, heart-sinking, time wasting, symptom preoccupied .... patients.

If I receive referral information, or heads up information on diagnosis that suggests the above what do I do?

• Brace myself for impact?
• Become task focused?
  
• Share collective anecdotes in the staff room as a way to cope, unstress, inject some humour?

OR -

• Avoid labelling them or use these labels in a re-constructive way?
• Refuse to make gross assumptions
• Look at the individual non-judgmentally, holistically, educationally, behaviourally
  
• Believe I can make a difference (change is always possible [inevitable] )
  
• Side-step being tripped by foibles, behaviours and blatant displays of -ve obstructive ... attitudes that offend 'me'
  
• Enter their space and do my utmost to find room for manoeuvre?
• As a nurse do go and seek out strengths and opportunities in the same way that Capt Kirk et al. go and seek New Life, New Civilizations..?

You may have an impossible lock to pick. In its most severe form this is (pejoratively) known as 'personality disorder', but the nursing challenge is there in all its personal and professional glory.

So. Listen.
Attend to this personal
/ under-the-skin \
slant.
Listen and Learn.

Be aware of the pit that continues to trap many people. The life chances - the health career - that they may have missed, took for granted, spurned and much more you (we) will never know about.

Do your job: nurse.

Holistic interferometry

Since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the moon, the instrument has evolved with bigger lenses and mirrors. Despite additional advances in optics, physical constraints eventually prompted development in other directions. Rather than one optical or radio telescope, why not combine the inputs of several, tens, hundreds... ?

The health career model can act as an interferometer
for health across the care spectrum*.

We desperately need holistic interferometry for the personal, social, community (urban, rural and nomadic), national and global health care challenges we face.

* Which includes much of the electromagnetic.

Links:

Interferometry: Space.com

Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI)

Allen Telescope Array

SETI@home

Seti Inst.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory

Image source: Seti League
http://www.setileague.org/array2k/array2kb.jpg

Notes (II) for a 2010 introduction to the Health Career Model

... Where to start?

By its very nature as already suggested Hodges' model is difficult to explain. There are so many elements that demand our attention and so many avenues to run. Despite revealing one heading to be followed, Murphy (2002) describes how a theory of concepts is still elusive. From this we might focus purely on nursing and take a professional stance. We should be able after all to assume solid grounds for the system that supports nursing: namely nurse education. There is no need to do this as existing theories of concepts can provide a vehicle for explanation and research of Hodges' model.

Frequently acknowledged as a science AND an art, the individual-group axis in Hodges' model and the accent on communication makes individual and group psychology as much a pivotal source of knowledge as human anatomy and physiology. There are differences in the methods of verification, but the dependency is there and evident in the core nursing curriculum. Even though psychology remains a young science, resort to psychology is advantageous in other respects as the development of cognitive science and computer science can also inform our thought and research on Hodges' model. Fundamental to this is the basic form of the model construct the 2 x 2 matrix.

There are a great multitude of models that take this 2 x 2 matrix form. Apart from mathematics examples one the most commonly cited and influential is the so-called Johari window model of Harry Ingham and Joseph Luft which dates from 1955. Luft and Ingham were psychologists who created their model at the University of California, Los Angeles, while researching group dynamics. The Johari model has found a home in soft systems problems and can now be found in many other variations and one-off examples. There are whole books devoted to the subject of '2 x 2', an acknowledgment indeed of their utility and ubiquity (Lowy and Hood, 2004). From the OHP transparencies of old to the latest data projection forms, the 2 x 2 matrix is the tool of choice in the management consultant's armamentarium. This special cognitive device can also serve the (global) health and social care community and do so right across the board*. ...

Ref:
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Matrix-Thinking-Decisions-Management/dp/0787972924

Additional links:

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2008/02/big-book-of-concepts.html

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2010/02/notes-for-2010-introduction-to-health.html

*I would not include that last sentence in a new introduction, but it completes the post.

Sahana OSS response in Haiti

My source: Community informatics list [ciresearchers]:

Sahana Software Foundation
Haiti Earthquake Response
Status Report #1
January 17, 2010 00:00 UTC

The Sahana Software Foundation and the Sahana community responded with a massive voluntary effort immediately following the earthquake that has devastated the poor country of Haiti. Working around the clock, we have set up a hosted instance of Sahana (the first deployment of SahanaPy following a disaster!) on a public website that is already filling gaps in the information management requirements of the massive relief operation.

Major Accomplishments

We have a Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal - a live and active website up at http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org which contains a feeds from many of the relief agencies and links to Sahana modules that are actively being used to help coordinate the relief effort.

We have a Sahana Haiti wiki page where we are tracking all of our and others' activites at: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:start

We have a requirements page where we record all the modification, configurations, and changes to Sahana based on the mission requirements at: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:requirements

The Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal provides the following functionality:

1. An Organization Registry - serves to track organizations and offices working on the ground in Haiti. Organizations are encouraged to self-register and report their office locations - alternatively, individual organization office or lists of offices can be e-mailed to haiti-orgs@googlegroups.com and we have volunteers to assist with data entry and to aggregate lists from other sources. We have entered data from pre-disaster lists of organizations working in Haiti available from UN OCHA. We can assume that these organizations will be working on the relief efforts, but expect that most of their office locations will be different as most organizations have been forced to move into tents given that few buildings remain standing and usable in the capital. We are working to validate these lists with the organizations directly.

The site serves up both KML for Google Earth users and GeoRSS for everyone else, and will generate reports of organization activities and the gaps (uncovered sectors by geographic location). This site will hopefully become the main resource for accurate information about the organizations working on the ground, where they are located, and what activities they are engaged in, and the resources in terms of staff and equipment that they have available to them. (Currently, data is admittedly sparse but we expect more details to become available as the coordination efforts take root on the ground). We are coordinating with UN OCHA, Google and others on sources of accurate lists and updates.

What are the gaps in our information collection? We have a large and we think accurate list of organizations, but not much office location information. Without this, it becomes hard to generate data that can be used as a layer in a GIS system. We are encouraging people to report this information - preferably by GPS coordinates, but any location information that we can use to manually geo-reference the office is valuable. We hope to be able to enhance our capabilities such that we can produce polygons showing organization's areas of coverage by sector. Please direct organizations working in Haiti to our site to register their offices and activities!

2. A Missing Persons Registry / Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Registry - we are working with Google and others on an agreed common standard for the exchange of Missings Persons data using the PFIF standard. The Google site at http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/ is the main aggregator collecting all missing and found persons reports and we are encouraging all people to send data to that site. [We are struggling a little as Google's feed is not fully PFIF compliant and the lack of unique record identifiers makes it more complex to set up true synchronization without the creation of duplicate records. We continue to work with Google on this and hope to have a resolution and solution within the next few hours.] We will also be embedding Google's widget on our site for collecting missing person information. Google will be making their data available via a PFIF feed and we will be importing it into Sahana's Missing Persons registry. From there, Sahana can add value to the simple lists being collected.

In particular, Sahana's Disaster Victims Identification registry - or DVI - which is used to management the handling and tracking and tracing of the deceased, dead bodies and their identification. There is currently no other known application for this and we hope that those working in this area will find Sahana extremely valuable. Sahana will have the ability to cross-reference missing persons information with the identified and unidentified deceased, thus facilitating reconciliation efforts. The Sahana Missing Persons registry has additional physical description information fields and we hope to be able to utilize some of the image matching capabilities available to extend these capabilities further. Organizations interested in utilizing these capabilities (which will not be made open for public use) should contact the Sahana team at
sahana-haiti@lists.launchpad.net.

Any updated missing persons status information will be pushed back to the main Google repository from Sahana.

3. Situation Mapping - Sahana's site is able to map all of the geo-referenced data within Sahana - primarily the organization data, but we have also manually entered a data layer of hospitals and medical facilities. Sahana has worked with members of the OSGeo community to obtain a fast tiled set of the current imagery being made available by Digital Globe. Sahana is also leveraging the constantly updated set of Open Street Map tiles. These are acting as backdrop for the offices that are being entered as part of the Organization Registry. Other data sources that are ready and available to be leveraged by Sahana and SahanaPy for other deployments include reports from Ushahidi, various point layers from Open Street Map, location names, USGS earthquakes, and locations from GeoNames. We will continue to build out these capabilities further as relevant layers are made available.

Capabilities we are working on:

The following capabilities are in the process of being developed and we expect will soon be available:

4. Request Management: We are working with the US State Department, Ushahidi and some other voluntary efforts on a project to process SMS messages with requests for assistance sent from survivors in Haiti. SMS text messages sent to a short code in Haiti will go into Ushahidi, who will have volunteer translators to add some structure to the message, identifying the sender's name, location (to the extent possible), and category of the message - a missing persons report, a request for assistance, etc. The message will go into a Ushahidi GeoRSS feed that will be captured by Sahana and fed into a simple Request Management system where the requests for assistance (such as "send water" to a certain village or neighborhood) can be made visible to relief organizations working on the ground. Organizations can fulfill or claim requests for handling and message the person back that assistance is coming. (Missing persons information will be captured by Google).

5. Translation: In addition, our translation project is now set up for Kreol and French translation and we may utilize a pool of Kreol-speaking volunteers being set up by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to help in these efforts. Interested translators should be directed initially to:
http://translate.hfoss.eu/wiki/Translation to become oriented in the process.

6. Shelter Registry and Disaster Victims Registry: In the coming days, we expect that there will be a requirement to start tracking the location of temporary shelters now being established, and possible registration of the survivors. We will prepare Sahana's existing registries for such purposes, which will produce further consumable data layers as well as additional missing persons reconciliation capabilities.

If you want to help:

We are using the IRC #sahana channel on freenode as our main coordination tool. Join the chat room to volunteer for tasks and someone from our core volunteer team will direct you - this room is actively staffed on a 24x7 basis.

But first, please check out the wiki pages to see what are the current requirements and areas of focus. We have a lot of volunteer Python and PHP programmers already working on the codebase, but we can probably use more. Please review the requirements page in particular to see where you might help.

We also have a large need for non-technical help - particularly for documentation support - user guidelines and instructions in particular - including some nice screenshots. See
http://trac.sahanapy.org/wiki/UserGuidelines to get started.

We also need help with Bug & Functionality testing. Please submit bug reports and feature request to: http://trac.sahanapy.org/newticket

For documentation and testing efforts - please use the development site at
http://haiti-orgsdev.sahanafoundation.org - NOT THE LIVE SITE PLEASE.

Finally, we could use help maintaining our own wiki - both the main page and requirements... much of this can be culled from the chat room logs - and helping to update some of the common public repositories of information about similar efforts, such as the crisis commons wiki at
http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Haiti/2010_Earthquake, although they are doing a pretty good job at tracking us ourselves.

Remember to add yourself to the wiki as part of team, and what you are doing.

Acknowledgements

Personally, I have never been a part of such a collaborative and cooperative effort on the part of different organizations to come together and to help each other and to not replicate efforts. The Sahana community has worked closely and constantly with InSTEDD, Ushahidi, haitianquake.com, Google, the Crisis Camp participants, and others I apologize for not mentioning and we wouldn't have been able to accomplish all that we have without this, and for this I am very grateful.

The around the clock efforts of many of the Sahana community are too numerous to mention here, and at risk of leaving anyone out, I would just like to thank everyone for all that they have done and been able to do while juggling responsibilities such as full-time jobs and families.

This has been a new model for Sahana deployments - rather than waiting for a specific customer to come forward to take ownership of Sahana, we have self-deployed and I think this will be a likely successful model for the future. More and more, technology projects are stepping forward and doing good directly.

So go forth and do good.

Best regards,
Mark
==========
Mark Prutsalis
President & CEO
Sahana Software Foundation
Tel 860-499-0332
Fax 801-697-8731
mark at sahanafoundation.org
http://www.sahanafoundation.org

Sun Microsystems blog: Pretty good example* of a Strategic (Design) Brief

The Sun Microsystems site includes a blog (Martin Hardee) with an article entitled as above that poses eight questions. These questions can greatly inform the process of creating a strategic brief (which is also provided for download). Although the item is from 2005 and the context differs - contrast a corporate website design and a future website for Hodges' model - there is value for me in answering the questions. So here goes... starting with the opening paragraph from the original blog post then the questions in bold, interspersed with my responses:

As I've mentioned in previous postings, the most important single step you can take in designing anything for the web is to create a strategic brief. This should be done early in the discovery phase of any design project. The reason it's so important is that it will make you focus and it will provide a guide map for whoever is creating and implementing your design. To write a strategic brief, you'll need to know a lot of important but oft-ignored basics such as:

A) Why are you embarking on this design (or new web site, or whatever), anyway?

The existing website was created in 1997 using Hot Metal Pro and written in HTML. The site was built as a personal and spare time project around the original course notes of Brian Hodges. These were in the form of Word files produced with secretarial support as part of a Post Graduate Certificate of Eduction project. As a result the current website has developed in a rather ad-hoc manner, with the addition of pages on informatics and information. The home page was re-designed in 2005 using Fireworks reflecting the model for which it is 'home'. At no point thus far has the website provided a community for users of Hodges' model. The site is currently static, without a database to support dynamic content development and a community of users.

Use of Drupal will provide a (truly) dynamic lever by potentiating the following:

1. sheer unadulterated enthusiasm and fun (lifelong learning - literacy skills);
   
2. a more professional footing (hosting...);
3. international customisation (multiple languages);
4. ultimately address several audiences (health, education, informatics and public);
5. find out what would-be users of the model want;
   
6. create some consistent styling;
7. provide an archive;
   
8. building on the foundation provided by the website and this blog W2tQ;
9. provide a foundation for future research (by producing my 1st Drupal site - a beta);
10. (As already noted I have wondered about linking this project to a research course, but at the moment I ask myself what's the point...?)
    

B) What are your business objectives and how would you measure success?

There are no 'business objectives' as such, but if this blog and a future site can generate some revenue to support purchase of hardware, (some) software and services then "that's about time". General objectives are to generate critical thinking and decisions on:

• content types to support the use of Hodges' model;
• phased development;
• interface design - use of Ajax, jQuery.

Ultimate (reach for the stars...) objectives:

• to invite users to contribute to the model's development;
• reopen the question of visualization in the social sciences;
  
• to learn of other conceptual frameworks that might also support 'global health for all';
  
• to produce a virtual learning environment that conjoins health, informatics and education;
• to influence nursing curricula development;
• to create a self-sustaining global community of users
• to cover some costs and let go. ....
  

C) Who are your various audiences or customer segments and what are their objectives (often different from your business objectives, btw)

+ students (health and social care); students (generic - PSHE);
+ all qualified care professionals
+ lecturers

The objectives here are diverse, but include completion of learning and course tasks, including essays and case studies, tools to support and demonstrate reflection and holistic / integrated care in theory and practice. Lesson plans and means of assessment are also essential, to what extent can students and professionals - indeed all users of a conceptual framework demonstrate - competency? This has to be through specific assignments and marked assessment which could include:

1. essay;
2. case study;
3. oral presentations, audio, video podcasts;
4. quizzes, e.g., multiple choice;
5. and possibly specific 'roles' through the Drupal site.
   

The politics of the educational establishment include that tools should be evidenced, safe, fit for purpose. There may also be a requirement to dovetail with use of dedicated learning management systems and standards such as SCORM. As such a new site should seek to incorporate such standards - through Drupal - in so far as they do not affect innovation and projecting the model into the future.

+ patients and carers

Patients and carers would often benefit from a means to facilitate dialogue with their keyworkers and the associated health and social care team. Hodges' model can help provide a schema, portal and media form for such dialogues. This dialogue can potentially act as:

• an aide-mémoire for the patient during a Consultant appointment (maximising the time available for both parties);
  
• a means for educational engagement (medication concordance, relapse prevention....).
  

+ policy makers and care commissioners
+ managers

These stakeholders are concerned with metrics, outcomes, quality and evidence.

+ information and communication technology staff

In addition to project management tools ICT staff would benefit from tools that support socio-technical perspectives.

For all the would-be users of Hodges' model the critical question is evidence. The new site should provide a foundation for research in Hodges' model and other conceptual frameworks.


D) What's the scope: How much are you going to tackle at once?

By using a content management system Drupal provides a means to be more productive (once sufficiently skilled!) in terms of addressing the objectives and scope delineated above.

This is the key question!

I need to acknowledge advice already provided from friends at the Drupal NW England group and Ruby community. Basically - do what you need to to get a site out of the door. What I must identify is the baseline functionality and design that will provide the foundation for a site. The baseline must include:

• roles and access rules;
• at least one specific content type (whether existing or new) for Hodges' model;
• RDF;
• accessibility.

E) What sort of constraints do you have in terms of product, business process, technology, or budget?

Hodges' model is nebulous and grand in its potential scope so it is vital that constraints are imposed on the project. A new PC and software will prove a great advantage leaving behind a trusted 7 year old machine. There is a no dedicated budget for the project.

The biggest constraint is time. This is non trivial and has already impacted this blog in that the comments are disabled. Early on the comments facility invited spam.

F) What existing projects and groups does this project need to coordinate with in order to avoid a train wreck?

None. The only legacy commitment are to move the existing pages to an archive that is readily accessible and signposted.

There are however two considerations:

1. Since first identifying Drupal as the platform to adopt, it was at version 4.7. It is now on the brink of version 7.0. This dynamic development environment presents challenges of its own.

2. As already highlighted if the new site is to reach the educational community it will be necessary to take heed of existing Drupal modules and resources, e.g. the DrupalEd distribution, The Scientific Collaboration Framework and assess their suitability - 'off the shelf'.


G) What kind of market and "voice of customer" research (including site metrics) do you already have?

In ten years with the existing site evidence shows that people do not have time to 'get in touch'; more needs to be offered. The existing website is 'failing' in terms of:

• as stated its dated design;
• site metrics - hits;
  
• publishing standards (academic, relevance, timeliness and currency, referencing, styling, semantic markup);
• and user engagement.

Despite the non-trivial constraint of time and website 'stasis' this blog is an emerging as a potential channel of engagement. The clustermaps and recently added 'flags of the world' demonstrate the global appeal of the content here and hopefully the model. Since there is little time for analysis of Google analytics data, the new site will utilise core statistic functionality and contributed modules as available (and proven).


H) What are the roles on the project? For instance, if you're engaging a design vendor what are they delivering vs. what are you delivering to the final mix?

As per the existing site and given budget constraints (i.e. there is none) there are no 'roles' on the project. All are up for grabs and presently rest with me. Hence the appeal of a content management system (Drupal) to ease the design and development burden.

Additional links:

Sun Microsystems blog post:
http://blogs.sun.com/MartinHardee/entry/pretty_good_example_of_a

Drupal

* The good example here is the title of the Sun Microsystems article and not necessarily my answers to the questions.

Image sources:
Drupal Groups
Chess piece:
http://www.mindful-leadership.com/Strategy%20Facilitation.htm

Call for papers: IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section open session

Colleagues from around the world are invited to submit an abstract for consideration for the HBS Open Session:

Health and Biosciences Libraries Section


Aim and Scope of the Session

It is hoped that papers will cover a wide range of areas - for example:

• Partnerships and collaborations that support free access to health information.
• Health libraries/health information professionals role in promoting open and / or equitable access.
• How health information is disseminated to the general public?
• How useful is free health information? Is it evidence based?
• How evidence based information is incorporated into freely available health information?
• Is there a decline in the use of health information that is not freely available e.g. library subscriptions?
• How do consumers prefer to access health information e.g. mobile devices, magazines, newspapers?
• What role health information literacy may have in health information?

It is anticipated that presentations be 15 minutes with time for questions at the end of the session.

Important dates:

February 1st 2010: Deadline for submission of abstract
March 1st 2010: Notification of acceptance/rejection
May 1st 2010: Deadline for submission of text

Submission Guidelines:

The proposals must be submitted in an electronic format and must contain:

Title of paper
Summary of paper (250 - 350 words maximum)
Speaker's name, address, telephone and fax numbers, professional affiliation, email address and biographical note (40 words)

Submissions are to be submitted before February 1st 2010 by email to:

Paivi Pekkarinen
National Library of Health Sciences
Haartmaninkatu 4
FI-00290 Helsinki, Finland
paivi.pekkarinen@helsinki.fi
www: http://www.terkko.helsinki.fi

Regrettably IFLA's Sections do not have funds available to pay for speakers expenses, including registration for the conference, travel, accommodation.

http://www.ifla.org/en/calls-for-papers/1930

Paivi Pekkarinen
IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section / Secretary
National Library of Health Sciences
Haartmaninkatu 4
FI-00290 Helsinki
email: paivi.pekkarinen at helsinki.fi

HIFA2015 profile: Paivi Pekkarinen is Head of the WHO Information Service Centre, National Library of Health Sciences, Finland. Professional interests include:

• To enhance equal access to health information, in particular in the WHO European Region;
• To enhance collaboration and networking of the Public Health Special Interest Group of EAHIL http://www.eahil.net/PHISIG-page.html;
• and knowledge management issues.

Click here to read online.

HIFA2015: Healthcare Information For All by 2015 www.hifa2015.org
With thanks to our 2009 Sponsors: *British Medical Association, ePORTUGUESe, Network for Information and Digital Access, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing*

To join or unsubscribe from HIFA2015, email:
hifa2015-admin at dgroups.org
To join our sister group CHILD2015 (child health), go to:
www.hifa2015.org/child2015-forum
To join our sister group HIFA2015-Portuguese, go to:
www.hifa2015.org/hifa-pt

My source:

HIPNet Listserv hjohnson at jhuccp.org

Call for Papers for Special issue on Linking the Local with the Global within Community Informatics

Please forward as appropriate. Thanks!

Dear all, a special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net) will be devoted to ´Linking the Local with the Global within Community informatics`, guest-edited by Liisa Horelli and Doug Schuler.

The Journal of Community Informatics is a focal point for the communication of research of interest to a global network of academics, community informatics practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers. The field of community informatics seeks to explore the potentials of ICTs and their applications for economic, ecological and socio-cultural development efforts at the community level. It seeks to ensure that individuals and communities can take advantage of the opportunities that these technologies can provide.

For this special issue of the Journal, we are inviting submission of original, unpublished articles. We welcome research articles from different disciplines, case studies and notes from the field. All research articles will be double blind peer-reviewed. Insights and analytical perspectives from practitioners and policy makers in the form of notes from the field or case studies are also encouraged. These will not be peer-reviewed.

You can find the full Call for Papers below. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Warm wishes, Liisa and Doug

------------------------------------------

Journal of Community Informatics:

Call for Papers for Special issue on Linking the Local with the Global within Community Informatics

Guest editors: Liisa Horelli and Douglas Schuler

The Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net) is a focal point for the communication of research of interest to a global network of academics, Community Informatics practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers.
We invite submissions of original, unpublished articles for a forthcoming special edition of the Journal that will focus on Linking the Local with the Global within Community Informatics. We welcome research articles from different disciplines, case studies and notes from the field. All research articles will be double blind peer-reviewed. Insights and analytical perspectives from practitioners and policy makers in the form of notes from the field or case studies are also encouraged. These will not be peer-reviewed.

What is Community Informatics?

Community informatics

...links economic and social development efforts at the community level with emerging opportunities in such areas as electronic commerce, community and civic networks and telecentres, electronic democracy and online-participation, self-help and virtual health communities, advocacy, cultural enhancement, and e-planning among others....is concerned with carving out a sphere and developing strategies for precisely those who are being excluded from this ongoing rush, and enabling these individuals and communities to take advantage of some of the opportunities which the technology is providing. It is also concerned with enhancing civil society and strengthening local communities for self-management and for environmental and economically sustainable development, ensuring that many who might otherwise be excluded are able to take advantage of the enormous opportunities the new technologies are presenting.

- Michael Gurstein in Community Informatics:
Enabling Communities with Information and Communications

Why a special issue on Linking Local with the Global within Community Informatics?

Community informatics (CI) is the study and practice of information and communication systems (especially involving networked digital systems) in the community. Regardless of the agreement on the broad definition, there are inherent tensions within the CI community and with the CI perspective itself. The "simple" idea of community is the source of one tension since there are a multiplicity of definitions and usages of the word "community", many of which are semantically loaded or ambiguous. Is, for example, a "virtual community" a real community?

Another source of tension is between the local and the global, the focus of this special issue. What's local and what's global? What is their significance in terms of our focus on "community"? How do we define the two terms so that they are meaningful and useful to our work? Perhaps these terms distract us from conceptualizing our enterprise in ways that are more useful? What characterizes phenomena or artifacts as belonging to one or the other (and how do they influence each other)? Interestingly, the community of community informatics researchers, practitioners, and activists itself is part of a new hybridity that blurs local and global.

The term glocalization has been coined to focus on the intermixing of local and global influences which are present and active everywhere. Although the phenomenon is not new, it has intensified in recent years due to the Internet, mass communications, mobile telephones, air travel, war, migration, economic interdependence, environmental impacts, and other aspects of 21st century mobilities. But identifying and naming a phenomenon is only the beginning. We must not mistake our use of a new term for understanding. For example, how would glocalization help us understand a network of local communities?

The availability of urban and community ICT could allow people to understand the larger impacts of their everyday decisions. It could also enable people to understand and promote not only the particularities of the local but also commonalities of the global, and to engage with the broader global “sphere”. Consequently, people could become actors who are engaged in the glocal networks of mobile people, goods and information.

However, glocal influence or interaction could be directed from the top-down, laterally, or from the bottom-up. CI implicitly embraces the tension between the local and the global. On some level, global and local pit two types of forces against each other. How does CI consider this clash or intermingling of forces? Does it advocate larger barriers, shelters, or hiding places, from these forces or does it inspire or promote the type of collective intelligence that goes beyond "using ICT?" The recent debate on the CI-research list brought up the idea that CI could be used, in addition to the benefit of communities, to the benefit of global communities. This debate raised arguments that both supported and questioned the claim. On the one hand, there is the risk that glocalisation can dilute (and downgrade) the "community" to some larger (and less individually significant) whole. In that case, it may be important to preserve the 'local' as it maintains the community's domains of control and power over the circumstances that impacts it. It can be reasoned that greater globality essentially removes self-control and self-governance.

On the other hand, glocalisation provides new strategic options for movements who seek resources and support far beyond national boundaries, such as the Chiapas, in Mexico. The global opportunities even begin to play part in the way local activists frame the issues they raise locally. Thus, the "outside world" affects communities, but communities exert forces outwards as well. Local communities can also share experiences and strategies, thus mutually strengthening each other. We need to figure out, how we are going to make the glocal or translocal connections work most effectively. This special issue is intended to help surface the opportunities, challenges, and risks around this theme.

These issues give rise to a large number of research questions. Some of these are listed below but there are many yet to be identified and researched. What processes underlie the forces of globalization? Which are forces of localization? How are people affected by each? How do these forces originate, diffuse, and make their effects felt? Do these forces affect all communities equally or are gender, ethnicity, or other features significant factors? And what should CI researchers / practitioners do in relation to those forces? Is the issue trying to help communities use ICT more effectively, or is it working in a general way to develop communication systems that will help local communities intelligently address the problems that they (and the rest of the world) face? In some situations, for example, this means helping to develop collective problem-solving tools so people can more effectively resist oppression or fight the status quo. Or should their inhabitants be full citizens of the world with the rights and responsibilities that accompany that status? How can we characterize the new diversity of global / local relationships? What patterns exist? In what ways might (hyper?) localism breed parochialism and isolationism? Can we embrace CI without unnecessarily valorizing the local community? What are the opportunities (and what should the limits be) to our research and activism on behalf of and with the local community?

Because CI is a brand new field of research and practice we have the rare opportunity to define our field. Is it useful — or even possible — to conceptualize a social enterprise that is relevant today without explicitly acknowledging climate change, environmental degradation, oppression, poverty, human rights, war and militarism, and other "global" problems that face us all, however indirectly. How should these manifest "global" concerns be factored into our enterprise? And how does the role of information and communication, the foundations of our enterprise, change — if at all — the way we answer these questions? This positioning of our enquiry at such a point should enable a new set of opportunities. CI integrates research and engagement. So its view of localism and globalism needs to be informed through those perspectives.

We invite authors to submit in English both full articles for peer-review, as well as short pieces on specific experiences and/or policy and regulatory issues, to be reviewed by the guest editors.

Please note the deadlines:
Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2010
Deadline for submissions: 30 May 2010
Publication date is forthcoming

For information about submission requirements, including author guidelines, please visit:
http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

For further information, clarifications, comments or suggestions, and to send abstracts of papers for consideration, please contact:

Dr. Liisa Horelli Helsinki University of Technology Centre for Urban and Regional Studies liisa.horelli at tkk.fi
Douglas Schuler The Public Sphere Project and The Evergreen State College douglas@publicsphereproject.org

The Communication Initiative Network and holistic bandwidth

In 2004 I attended a day at a community informatics conference in Brighton, UK (see the side bar for details). My interest in that event stems from recognising the different schools of informatics and the multidisciplinary potential for Hodges' model that extends beyond health and social care. The model provides a cognitive gymnasium for us to test and exercise our holistic bandwidth.

The notion of 'holistic bandwidth' really comes into its own within global development and communication. In 2004, or soon after I discovered The Communication Initiative Network. They kindly posted the Brighton position paper on their site and were very encouraging regards the model. Now they are developing a new Communication Initiative Social Networking Platform - http://groups.comminit.com/

There are many groups including:

• The Future of ICTs and Development
• Communication and Climate Change Adaptation

In the above group I learned of the following initiative :

There is an interesting initiative in Africa called AfricaAdapt. It is a network that works to facilitate the flow of climate change adaptation knowledge for sustainable livelihoods between researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations, and communities who are vulnerable to climate variability and change across Africa. There is a whole section on their website that allows for communities to upload their own information on how they are adapting to climate change. The initiative also offers an award for best community project which helps elicit contributions. See http://www.africa-adapt.net/AA/

Africa: never far from the news. Lets hope this next week there is some +ve news from COP15 Copenhagen.

• Students - Communication for Development
• HIV/AIDS Strategy: Future Directions
• Polio Communication Consultation Group

There are diseases lost to the developed nations and with diseases like polio and leprosy communication and education are central to those who are ill and their families. Even as a nurse there is a stark reminder in the need for an International Leprosy Day.

• Gender, Education, and HIV/AIDS

On the teaching psychology list someone asked this past week about alternatives to structure a student's lifespan assignment. I suggested Hodges' model an approach that can also be adapted to educate people about disease ....

SCIENCES: aetiology, prevention, transmission, hygiene, diagnosis, prognosis, evidence, research, physical resources, drugs, nutrition, age, weight...
INTRAPERSONAL: attitudes, beliefs, education, literacy, personal responsibility, mood...
SOCIOLOGY: social networks, cultural beliefs, gender expectations, community, family, friends, trust...
POLITICAL: policy, leadership, funding, activism, infrastructure: housing heating..., access to services, media, employment, governance...

• Ethics in Communication for Development
• Gathering Theories and Models

This group only has 5 members and is of obvious interest to me. I can't recall whether I signed up: must check! Planning and development in this context covers topics and issues I know nothing of and yet I am sure that dressed in its socio-technical guise Hodges' model can contribute to the theoretical development here. It could be that there are other perspectives, models and conceptual frameworks to be found that can inform the global health agenda?

• DRAFT: Technical Update on Social Change Communication and HIV/AIDS
• Human Rights and Technology
• Web Site Directors

So, do visit the Communication Initiative both the new groups above and the general website.

h2cm - Being at the center of things [I]

The center of Hodges' model can represent many things:

an epistemological nexus for the transdisciplinary dependencies of our times
multidisciplinary coffee shop
self-care engagement stage
the chaos of all things
holistic harmony
integrated idyll*

More down to Earth and acknowledging this cruciform '+' structure as a mythic device, in addition to searching for the mysteries of the universe at the center we can also place the 'well' person there.

As the previous post on ADLs suggests the 'well' person can function on a basic level and has negotiated the four axes and the four and five fold knowledge domains. They can therefore be considered (sufficiently) wholly integrated. We are all travellers, constantly traversing these domains of experience consciously, unconsciously, expertly or with the awkwardness that denotes the novice.

Conversely and reflecting the model's utility: it is also possible to locate the unwell individual in the center too. In this instance the placement suggests impoverishment of experience, ongoing personal and social stasis and in the case of substance misuse the presence of specific disruptive focus and preoccupations. The person becomes lost to their potential, stuck in a 4:5-fold minima. They continue to travel chronologically, but the journey is spiral, self-iterative and diminishing by return.


However: what you can see you can change, or come to terms with.

*from Greek eidyllion, little picture (h2cm as a snapshot).

Image source: http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/protein2.html

Combining h2cm, Informing Science and informatics on the Rainbow Bridge

As a boy one of my favourite superheroes and subjects of myth was Thor and his retinue - Loki, Odin, The Rainbow Bridge. These remain tantalizing escapes for young minds should a corner shop sell comics.

As I mentioned previously in posting about the informing science journal, a paper currently in preparation makes use of holistic bridges and I have had in mind Thor and his ilk and Rainbow Bridge between worlds. In Hodges' conceptual framework the domains of knowledge that make up the model could almost be disparate worlds. This disciplinary repulsion presents several challenges at a time when disciplinary in-fusion is needed (demanded by our problems):

Integration of health and social care in the form of:

• physical - emotional health;
• applied socio-technical informatics
• personalised and service centred care

Academic cross-disciplinary working, e.g. informatics -

• clinical
• urban
• e-governance

Last summer I posted a suitably colourful mix of holistic bridges that included the image below. These hyphenated cross-disciplines conjoin the four care or knowledge domains of Hodges' model.

My interest in ICT began with the ZX81 in 1981 and ever since I've been intrigued as to how we can integrate the above. Why does this matter? It matters not just because of the complexity of the problems we face in in our work and home lives. The real challenge lies in communication.

To take one problem the application of ICT in health care. Here the technical world, the mechanistic butts up against - clashes with - the humanistic. The paper published in spring focused upon socio-technical structure in nursing informatics.
Structure whether virtual, conceptual framework, mythical rainbow is one thing; but what purposes can arise from structure?

In highlighting communication (critical in health care) our purpose is -

using information technology to help convey
the meaning of information in order to inform.

The two axes (or hammers?) in Hodges' model are:

HUMANISTIC - MECHANISTIC [H-M]
and
INDIVIDUAL - GROUP [i-g]

These axes provide the bridge to link informing science and Hodges' model. In the act of communicating, imparting information we may be concerned with the concept of information from its mathematical formulation, the channel, noise through to the semantics and meaning from a sociocultural perspective. This seems to match with the (horizontal) axis [H-M], while the task of informing is concerned with the agents that is the (vertical) axis [i-g].

So what is the relevance of Thor? Well that role of engaging clients (patients, carers, managers, service users....) in communication sees a group communicate with an individual and vice-versa. The processes involved are not necessarily discrete as might be captured 'on paper'. The axes of Hodges' model labelled 'information' and 'informing' become blurred.

We are constantly reminded of the multi-contextual nature of health care. Now, I don't know if care is suddenly more complex on a Thursday, I just figure that when Thor starts to swing his hammer there is suddenly not one axis, but a great many. We are not just aware of multiple contexts we are forced to consider the multi-dimensional too.

Additional links:

Informing Science Journal

Thor image and interesting discussion:
http://afewshotstoshaman.blogspot.com/search?q=thor

Thor - movie 2011?

Informing Science (with Thor to follow) ...

The problem with the web is you search, find and save stuff and then it virtually disappears on hard drives and folders only to somehow bubble-up back to life hopefully at a time of need. So with the Informing Science Journal.

I know the details are only a click away, but here they are:

The academically peer refereed journal Informing Science endeavors to provide an understanding of the complexities in informing clientele. Fields from information systems, library science, journalism in all its forms to education all contribute to this science. These fields, which developed independently and have been researched in separate disciplines, are evolving to form a new transdiscipline, Informing Science.

Informing Science publishes articles that provide insights into the nature, function and design of systems that inform clients. Authors may use epistemologies from engineering, computer science, education, psychology, business, anthropology, and such. The ideal paper will serve to inform fellow researchers, perhaps from other fields, of contributions to this area.

Ever since reviewing Gary Hall's "Digitize This Book!" the future of academic publishing, the university as an institution and scholarly disciplines has been on my mind. I did have another book on my wish list that predicted I believe the death of the university if things do not change. This is lost somewhere... I am really pleased to rediscover this journal, its contents and look forward to reading more and possibly contributing once existing projects are completed...

In the substance misuse paper draft, in addition to the usual key concepts I am wondering about the use of holistic bridges and so...

More to follow soon on the aims of the Informing Science Journal with reference to Thor, bridges and what informing science means for Hodges' model ....