De-Mystifying the NHS

Ah,this would be a neat trick!  Like uncorking the genie and having the answers to any conundrum that crosses another’s lips.

But I did attend Yorkshire and Northern’s ASSIST event of the same name.

My intention was to develop my understanding of the NHS infrastructure and connection channels as much to understand the fundamental role that Information plays in developing that infrastructure.

ASSIST’s event affording me some greater clarity of the functionings of the NHS and the current challenges and difficulties as well as the reality of the working nature of ‘informatics’ within the system.

There are some key things I agree with.

1) Health Services produce Data.

Data is Data. It is not Information and turning that Data into relevant Information is the role of an Information Specialist.

2) Information Specialists need to be involved at service developmental level in order understand project development and how outcome data needs to be turned into relevant systems.  If they are not involved at the start point then implementation of the planned projects and service delivery may be untranslatable.

We know this because this happens in the NHS.

It also happens everywhere else in Health.

3) Systems that focus on the internal workings of themselves tend to use language that makes no sense to anyone else.

In fact.  We all tend to use language in different ways.

I could describe ‘Service User Involvement in the design of technical applications’ as ‘NHS to Patient Interfaces from the Patient perspective’

And indeed, this is the area in which design, research and development is fundamentally lacking in the NHS and everywhere else in Health.

Which is actually a clear opportunity.

If you fancy having a go at De-Mystifying the NHS yourself you are very welcome.