2nd meeting of the TFPL Health Special Interest Group

Author: Vivienne Winterman
TFPL, Senior Consultant

• Shared ‘joined-up’ services to reduce duplication and fragmentation of KIM/LIS work;
• collaboration with other areas, in particular the voluntary sector;
• developing new gp/patient customer bases;
• collecting patent experience;
• showing the value of KIM;
• working closely with IT.

These were just some of the outcomes buzzing from the lively and well attended meeting of TFPL’s Health Special Interest group held last night. Linda Wishart (Head of Knowledge & Information Management, Department of Health) addressed some of the challenges ahead for the health sector in times of the worst financial cuts and how the KIM community could respond. Wayne Sime (Director of Library Services, Royal Society of Medicine) hosted and chaired the meeting in the beautiful olde worlde surrounds at the RSM. A full report of the meeting will follow on the TFPL website.

Comments

[Bruce Madge]

I have read the report of the evening which I was sorry I missed! It occurs to me that one useful group to connect with is the Primary Health Care Specialist Group of the British Computer Society. I have been a member of this group since the 90's and can definitely say that they "get" the idea of Knowledge Management. They are mainly GP's with an interest and quite a deep knowledge of IT and so would be a good place to start to see how closer working could be achieved. One way might be to get a presentation into their Annual Conference which is also well worth attending if you are interested in seeing where GP computing is heading..

[Alison Turner]

I found the meeting both interesting and useful - it can be a little depressing to think about the intense pressures ahead but this meeting avoided getting bogged down in the problem and focused on actions we can start taking now e.g. align ourselves more strategically with emerging coalition strategy, proactive marketing. I've also been lucky enough to attend the KMUK conference this week where similiar messages were discussed, with Dave Snowden in particular telling us to be more strategic http://www.cognitive-edge.com/presentationdetails.php?presentationid=69.