Workshop - Delivering High Quality Health Care for All: Bringing the social and technical together...

My SOURCE: SOCIOTECH at JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Dear Colleague,

Please find details attached of a Think Tank focused on developing socio-technical approaches to the provision of healthcare (in the context of the National Programme for IT in the NHS).
Please note that attendance is restricted to around 30 people and that anyone wishing to contribute will need to apply (as specified in the attachment) - which follows below PJ.

Thanks and best wishes

Chris
P.S. please feel free to circulate these details to colleagues who you think may be interested. Thank you.

Professor Chris W Clegg
Centre for Socio-Technical Systems Design
Leeds University Business School
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
c.w.clegg at leeds.ac.uk

Delivering High Quality Health Care for All:
Bringing the social and technical together for a joined-up approach to deliver supporting systems and technologies
10th/11th December 2009

Call for contributions to an event organised by the UK Faculty of Health Informatics and the BCS Socio-Technical Group

Core idea
This 2-day Think-Tank event has been set up to discuss and report on how Health and Social Care employers and other key stakeholders in the Informatics field might bring about a joined-up approach to the implementation of electronic health records, one that brings together changes both in technology and in the social practices around it.

Rationale
The National Audit Office’s report on “Delivering successful IT-enabled business change” see: www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/06-07/060733es.pdf and the University College London Evaluation report on the Early Adopters of the Summary Care Records project (see: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/6602/1/6602.pdf) both highlight the challenges of implementing technology-based projects within a fixed time line and how this can reduce the opportunities to get a more “user-centred” approach to change.

In many sectors of the UK economy the drive to get the technology ‘on desk, on time, and on budget’ can mitigate against developing a full understanding and consideration of how the changes may be of real practical value to users and customers.

It is increasingly recognised that ‘technology-push’ will not be enough in its own right to achieve the full benefits and efficiencies that are being sought in service delivery. Rather, we need to bring about innovations both in the technical systems, and in the working practices, work roles and processes that surround them. Put bluntly we need a more joined-up approach to change. This has been variously called ‘user-centred’ or ‘socio-technical’ or ‘holistic’.

Objectives
The objectives of this event are to discuss and subsequently report on –
• What does such a joined-up approach mean in practice?
• What examples exist from across the UK Health and Social care sector where such approaches have been used?
• Who has to do what, to make it happen consistently across the NHS and Social Care services?
• How will we know if it is succeeding?

Organisers
The event has been organised by the UK Faculty of Health Informatics and the BCS Socio-Technical Group.

The event will be chaired jointly by Professor Chris Clegg, Chair of the British Computer Society’s Socio-Technical Group the and Doctor Beverley Ellis, Joint Vice-Chair of the UK Faculty of Health Informatics.

Getting involved as a contributor or delegate at the event
If you wish to attend the Think Tank, please submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to Bruce Elliott, Co-ordinator of the UK Faculty of Health Informatics at bruceelliott@nhs.net by 28th September 2009.

Your EOI should include brief summary (of up to 200 words) of your role, experience and expertise in this context.

Please note we are seeking people from a range of stakeholder groups including:

• Acute Hospitals
• Suppliers
• Health and Care Commissioning organisations
• Primary and Community Care Providers
• End users of nationally-led systems, e.g., CMS, SCR, ECR
• Connecting for Health, Informing Healthcare and the Scottish Government’s E-Health Programme
• Academics
• Patient Leads

In the event that we are over-subscribed, we will select people so as to provide an appropriate balance of experience and expertise, to ensure the Think Tank can meet its objectives.

Please make it clear in your EOI if you would also like to present a short paper at the event. In such a case please also add a brief abstract of your proposed paper (of up to 200 words).

If you have been allocated a place you will receive written confirmation along with a copy of the final programme by 16th October 2009.

Associated papers
In November 2009, a Position paper capturing some of the Key Challenges in adopting Socio-Technical approaches will be shared with the participants to identify some of the key issues that will be addressed at the event.

Following the event, up to 5 contributors to the event will be commissioned to write papers on the topics and issues emerging, with the aim of informing key stakeholders in how Socio-Technical approaches can be utilised effectively across the NHS and Social Care. These papers will be completed by the end of January 2010, for inclusion in an overall Briefing report. We will also be actively exploring avenues for wider publication in order that the good ideas can be spread and acted on.

Location
Weetwood Hotel and Conference Centre, Leeds