BCS Specialist Group on AI : SGAI Virtual Seminar - 8th May UK

Welcome

The SGAI Virtual Seminar Series is a new series of free evening Zoom events, open to all, which ultimately we intend to run monthly from October to June on a Wednesday evening from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. (UK time). No prior registration is needed.

It is organised on behalf of BCS SGAI - the BCS Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence.

The next seminar in the series will be on Wednesday May 8th from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (UK time).

There will be talks by Matt Armstrong-Barnes, Chief Technology Officer, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, who asks 

‘If Artificial Intelligence is mainstream and the cornerstone of digital transformation, why do so many projects fail?”

and by Dr Diego Maseda Fernández, an Acute and General Internal Medicine Consultant, whose topic is ‘Large Language Models in Healthcare: What Frontline Clinicians Are Being Told’.

This will be followed by a tutorial by students at the University of Southampton entitled ‘Large Language Models: Democratise AI with Low-Code/No-Code’.

My source: Email today.

Care by the Quarter*

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

	"A review of almost 1,000 audits by a professional accounting body has found that about a quarter were substandard."

 

*5ths really - the spiritual and never an after-thought...

When we talk of achieving 'balance', 'leverage', being 'on message' and other c-speak, this is clearly never straightforward.

Source:

Louisa Clarence-Smith, Inspectors find a quarter of audits are substandard, The Times, September 29, 2020, p.42.

See also:

Bloomfield, B. P., & Danieli, A. (1995). THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: THE INDISSOLUBLE NATURE OF SOCIO-POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL SKILLS*. Journal of Management Studies, 32(1), 23–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1995.tb00644.x 

Leys, C. (1999). Intellectual Mercenaries and the Public Interest: Management consultancies and the NHS. Policy & Politics, 27(4), 447–465. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557399782218353

Oliver, D. (2014). Stop wasting taxpayers’ money on management consultancy for the NHS. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 349. Retrieved October 9, 2020, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26519046

Kirkpatrick, I., Sturdy, A J, Alvarado, N, Blanco-Oliver, A and Veronesi, G. ‘The impact of management consultants on public service efficiency’ Policy & Politics: doi.org/10.1332/030557318X15167881150799. 

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/PolicyBristol_Briefing_54_2018_management_consultancy_inefficiency_in_the_NHS.pdf

Begley, P., & Sheard, S. (2019). McKinsey and the ‘Tripartite Monster’: The Role of Management Consultants in the 1974 NHS Reorganisation. Medical History, 63(4), 390-410. doi:10.1017/mdh.2019.41

https://twitter.com/barry_halverson/status/1314255088874127360?s=20

 

My Moon Mission? "The Stack"

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

I choose  ... [still] to try . 4.6 . . . 8.7.5 and c o u n t i n g . WAMP Windows Apache MySQL PHP Command Line Interface [VirtualBox, Vagrant ...] PHPMyAdmin  JQuery git HTML5 CSS Drupal APIs Themes & Modules*^ Create Custom T&Ms #? . to journey ... to explore ... to learn ...	Saturn V Reference Dimensions: http://heroicrelics.org
The Drupal slogan is: "Come for the software, stay for the community."	The Stack

*What are the requirements of your project?
^What themes and modules are available 'out of the box'?

^#If the themes and modules you require are not available you can create your own.

The idea of using Drupal (or other CMS) is to use the software to do the 'heavy lifting'.


Image source:
http://heroicrelics.org/info/saturn-v/saturn-v-general.html

H2CM new website - A short-form project brief

In Dani Nordin’s Drupal for Designers, chapter 4 is includes a short-form project brief.

As I pack for Prague and another Drupalcon (my 6th!) and with PHPNW conference fast approaching it's time I re-visited my project brief:

1 Identify the Project Goals

According to Nordin a good list of project goals should be no more than about three bullet points.

1. To provide a new archive for Brian Hodges’ lecture notes and make these accessible and multilingual
2. To share / signpost papers to date and invite others to collaborate and share work
3. To highlight why Hodges’ model matters

Then Dani moved to personas and here I'll extend the above goals.

2 Identify the Audience

I am looking for student nurses, that is under graduates and post grad, indeed life-long learners within the field of health and social care. In seeking students the natural progression of this is to connect if possible with lecturers and faculty. Nordin lists several ways to characterise the personas through common aspects:

• Who they are
• What will win them
• What I need them to know
• Content focus

So immediately I can broadly identify and develop two personas:

Learners

Who they are: Student nurses, social work students including medicine and other health and social care disciplines. They will be seeking evidence in theory and practice, with sources and resources to apply to assigned work. They will also be open to ideas and techniques that can help them to structure and recall their learning.
What will win them: Make it easy for them to see what is offered, find what they seek, Brian Hodges' lecture notes, provide feedback on learning if students are willing to register and invest their time. Provide a responsive contact form to answer questions promptly. Link the content to evidence if, or as soon as possible. Make content relevant by allowing users to contribute to website's development and direction.
What I need them to know: I want to convey to them an understanding of Hodges’ model its purposes, structure, content and how the model might be applied in theory and practice.
Content focus: Lecture notes text and video; Quiz; Test; Certificate; h2cm grid; Case study template; Presentations; FAQ; Registration; Contact form; Polls; Bibliography; Biographies; Timeline; Photos.

Lecturers

Who are they: Health and social care related faculty, teaching on nursing, social work, learning disability and other programmes. A diverse range of subjects and disciplines could be included from mental health, acute care, community and across the life course.
What will win them: Illustrate the ways h2cm can facilitate learning the aspects of (for example) nursing, not only reinforcing the key concepts of nursing (care) but why they care.
What I need them to know: Understanding how h2cm fits within their respective curriculum. Gaining awareness of how can the model can potentially stimulate and challenge their students and complement assignments. Why Hodges' model is relevant at this particular time.
Content focus: Brian Hodges' lecture notes; Outstanding questions; Research directions; Blog; Contact form; Registration; h2cm examples.

On the old website I possibly over-egged the pudding in terms of 'audiences'. There is an introductory page for -

• students and lecturer; 
• patients and carers;
• the public (citizens);
• and managers with policy makers.

Nordin has a persona for The Sharer. There are people for whom this is their forte. Here though I would try to include sharing tools that might be utilised by specific audiences. So for lecturers ways sharing might be Academia.edu, ResearchGate and LinkedIn. Likewise there are student (social media oriented) communities.The content of the old was fixed - by me. This needs to change, so polls and discussion may help define what the students / lecturers would like to see, hear ...

3 Focus on Information Architecture and Content Strategy

Nordin is describing a website re-design and so am I with some simplifications. Taking step 3 literally and from reading having an information architecture is very important to me. Its importance is not just in earning a scout badge, but it may need to vary slightly across the site. Nordin's step three seems to emphasize content. I'm wondering about headings, subtitles and other structural and aesthetic points. How might these work and hopefully cohere across the archive and rest of the site? It is also the case of separating (in my head) information architecture and styling.

As to content strategy I've played and doodled with this on several occasions. There's even an A, B, C, ... about it if you check above.

4 Identify New Features or Technologies You Want to Include

Responsive design is as Nordin also indicates a must have for me. In successive Drupalcon keynotes Dries Buytaert has stressed the rise of mobile devices. It would be a major gain to have the archive readable by mobile and tablet users.

Thus far I've not made full use of video, Skype and even audio for delivering content. At Drupalcon Prague there's a session media management and the Scald module. I'm hardly a radio or TV station but as people say DO consider those things that you are not skilled at, or naturally drawn to. Slides and presentations both existing and contributions (or links) would also be a key content feature.

If a community can emerge this might also be that as Nordin suggests users can share internally within the site using (unconsciously) specific structures within Drupal. The latest means of classifying and searching a site will also be essential. Seeking to share h2cm with the world I've scheduled some sessions on leveraging the multilingual capabilities of Drupal 8.

Accessibility is another essential feature.

5 Upgrade, or Start from Scratch

This, thankfully, is not an upgrade. To the list in #4 I could have added database - a dynamic website because this is the primary need, the enabler. With that though comes complexity and responsibility. Website management then demands data be protected, secure, backed up, and this involves migration and upgrades. So, starting from scratch - yes, but with an eye to upgrading.

The NW Drupal meetings in Manchester and Drupalcon Prague program bring the news of the many new tools and changes in Drupal 8:

• Views in core;
• New configurable fields e.g. entity reference, date, e-mail and others;
• Multilingual changes;
• Blocks & Layouts;
• Responsive images and breakpoints.
  
  From Drupalcon Prague "Drupal 8 for Site Builders" session

In addition there is Symfony, the loss of some hooks, Twig a templating engine.

6 Figure Out Theming and CSS Issues

If .Net and Web Designer magazines inform us of two things it's the pace of change in tools and the range of tools. It's helpful then when those choices are reduced. This may be the case with CSS within Drupal and adopting a grid system, a point made by Todd Nienkerk (p.79).

There are some excellent themes and sub-themes within Drupal 7. Drupal 8 extends this potential. I posted previously about Omega.

To conclude:
I think there is an interesting project here, but thinking alone isn't going to get this done!

[HIFA2015] Article: Why National eHealth Programs Need Dead Philosophers

My source: HIFA2015 Healthcare Information for All by 2015 (edited)

Dear All,

Just read through this article after I received it from the PAHO EQUIDAD listserve.

I have forwarded it to this group with the hope that some of my colleagues here that are interested in ehealth can access it.
It is worth reading...please see the link to the article by Trisha Greenhalgh et al below.

Why National eHealth Programs Need Dead Philosophers:
Wittgensteinian Reflections on Policymakers' Reluctance to Learn from History
Trisha Greenhalgh, Jill Russell, Richard E. Ashcroft, and Wayne Parsons
Queen Mary University of London
The Milbank Quarterly - Volume 89, Number 4, December 2011

Available online at: http://bit.ly/vxvWJ8 

Cheers

[Francis] Ohanyido

<->

This article is an excellent addition to the literature. It combines three of my passions reflected here on W2tQ - informatics, health and philosophy.
Many thanks to Francis Ohanyido and the HIFA2015 list.

FROM: A community mental health context TO: Acute EMR/EHR and other ...

or: Will 21st Century health and social care informatics truly begin on Sunday 10 10 10 ?

I've been a nurse AND info tech / informatics enthusiast since 1981. As an advocate of info-tech as a means to improve the quality, effectiveness and safety of health care - I must confess; I feel I have let down those colleagues purely there to 'nurse'. .

After 20+ plus years the nearest we (the team and I) got to a system that answered our questions was a small PICK database and a later MS Access database. These focused on referrals and data capture - demographics, problems, interventions (WHO and what) and outcomes. Although the number of data items was not great, no more than 30 the insights we could glean from queries was surprising. People versed with databases, datasets and research readily appreciate how even small datasets, carefully thought out and planned, can answer a diverse range of questions (and generate countless new ones too!).

I noticed in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s the development of customer management software and recognised that clinicians have a need: caseload management.

Even now the requirement of 'X' visits per day, the number of information systems and lack of integration (health - social care) mean that in many instances there is still no readily accessible caseload manager for the individual practitioner. This is an outcome and amid all the talk around 'engagement' (with a 'E').

Perversely, ironically, paradoxically (take your pick) at a time when Lean is (presented and) needed, there are scarce resources to do the things that should now be embedded (routinised) into the life history of the professional. This includes what the professionals do WITH the patients, carers, data, information ...

I speak to student nurses (and other disciplines) regularly as a nurse mentor and sign-off mentor. Their exposure to health care informatics to me is minimal, adhoc, and when it has happened it has signally failed to strike a cord. A very small (and so non-significant*?) sample admittedly.

Informatics remains an academic 'must do'.

Perhaps 21st century informatics only begins on Sunday -

101010

Whatever:
as it stands informatics is a management pursuit.

Slippage is a fact of project management, but words present their own challenge when target driven 'secondary' uses become 'primary'.

*surely not.

[A version of this post first appeared on the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society HIMSS group on LinkedIn.]

Innovation and the 'middle' in NHS computing

Let's start with a quote:

Information systems are no longer associated mainly with data processing; they are increasingly seen as a management tool and an aid to action. This means that the costs of failure are much greater, and these costs are incurred when expensive systems are not used or are inadequately used. Surveys have shown that in as many as half of systems there are large gaps between users' expectations and the system's performance.

When do you think the above was written?

Here's the reference:

Mumford Enid (1991) Need for relevance in management information systems: what the NHS can learn from industry. BMJ. June 29; 302(6792): 1587–1590

1991: quite sobering really.

Previous - part-time - work reviewing data standards proposals focuses the mind in terms of the role of standards in interoperability, service impact and other essential assessment qualities. As the NHS has sought to implement standards as with the National Programme for IT you are also aware of the clamour for creativity and innovation. Innovation is there in the title of agencies.

I have long pondered about the extent to which - like Nature and vacuums - standards abhor innovation and creativity. How much is the 'standard' about doing things by the 'book' ... page 57 : para.3 ...

My eye caught the viewpoint piece in this week's Computing -

If you approach the world positively, a downturn is a good time for innovation. The shortage of people and money can create the pressure that leads to creativity. There are three areas where action will help organisations succeed in exploiting IT to enable business innovation:
Kick out Prince2

What more is there to say about innovation and Prince2? The focus of the Prince2 project management methodology – on organisation and control, and defining what to deliver before you have begun – is death to innovation. It is a bad solution trying to solve the wrong problem. It takes the IT profession in the wrong direction if we want to contribute to business innovation. It has to go. The agile development movement provides much stronger foundations for succeeding with projects that result in business innovation.

Ashurst, Colin, Viewpoint: How to use IT to enable innovation, Computing, 5 November, 2009.

Of course there IS a world of difference between information standards and project management standards, but there is no escape from the need for (effective) management of transition and change WITH business continuity. Within that management - engagement approach (as per agile) -

+++++++ socio-technical +++++++

- perspectives, as highlighted by Mumford (and others) all those years ago must have a place.

Additional link:

BCS Sociotechnical Specialist Group

Foundations, projects, corners and cornerstones

Ok, so you have a new project - that's great!

Yes, we are going to build something - outstanding!

Sounds marvellous!

We are going to use up-to-the-nanosecond project management tools.

And you're going to do it by the book, charts and real-time tags.

Yes, with a dash of intuition plus - you know - gut instinct!

Well sure, pleased to hear that too.

We will take account of history, learn the lessons -
we've a researcher onboard you know?
Building a world-class team that's all fleet of foot and mind.

We'll tick all the boxes, check all the corners and leave no stone un-turned.

Truly admirable, but how many boxes and corners have you got and how many cornerstones* will you need?

Eh?

Hey listen up. Corners are for losers,

naughty children

and people lost in the dark.

Nobody is going to be stuck standing in the corner on this one!

Oh - right.

Well good luck....

Image sources:
'Cornerstone office': Cornerstone Corp. Center
Dan Flavin: at Artnet.

Inspired by the word 'cornerstone' and Untitled (Corner Piece) 1969 on visit to Tate Liverpool, 25 September 2009 (not the piece illustrated above):

Flavin made a number of works intended to be shown in corners, engaging directly with the architecture of the gallery. His use of commonly available fluorescent tubes enabled him to explore light as a non-physical material, animating gallery walls. The size of the work was determined so that the units could be fastened in the centre only, without having to be anchored to the floor. The artist rejected any symbolic significance of the object, insisting that it was simply a form that made good use of a corner.

Question: How many corners are there in Hodges' model?

*Cornerstones: here referring to stakeholders, sponsors, owners, partners, investors, builders, architects, designers...?

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

The domain once removed ...

When we reflect or physically interact with the world it is easiest to effect those things nearest to us. From an early age - stationary - we learn to look and reach.

Sometimes however it is those things that are remote, inaccessible that may be significant and deserving of our attention.

Imagine yourself placed in any of Hodges' knowledge domains as if in a prison cell.

The knocks on two walls clearly come to our attention. There - is another domain that remains off-limits.

This domain is the cognitive blind-spot: which will be yours today?

Image source: Fallingpixel.com