Open Evening: Reception and Lecture, 18.30-20.00
Please RSVP Christine Simpson
Future hospitals will face many challenges to be better, safer and more effective for patients. Computerisation is part of this agenda and drives many initiatives. Computers can reduce costs and provide a better experience for both staff and patients. Yet computerisation brings its own challenges from failed IT projects to operator error.
Prof Ross Koppel, Pennsylvania, USA, will explore why Healthcare IT fails to respond to the real needs of both clinicians and patients. Prof Harold Thimbleby, from Swansea University, Wales, will explore how many of these problems arise from design failings that remain invisible until it is too late. Both ask the question: How can these problems be avoided in the future.
Ross Koppel, based at the Sociology Department and School of Medicine, University of Philadelphia, USA. He is the lead investigator on the National Science Foundation study of hospital cyber communications, and at Harvard University he is evaluating new Healthcare IT (HIT) platforms and applications. He is a well-known investigator on studies of healthcare IT and medication error. He coauthored the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Guide to reducing unintended consequences of HIT. His most recent book is First Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety (Cornell University Press).
Harold Thimbleby, is a Fellow and a well-known computer scientist, but became concerned about healthcare systems when one of his students required intensive care. He has since been working on human error and system design to make healthcare safer. His book “Press On” (MIT Press) has won two international prizes. He is involved in a large EPSRC project to improve the safety of medical devices.
I invite you to attend this open lecture and discussion on Monday 16 February 2015, starting with a drinks reception at 1830hrs.
Best regards
Derek
Professor Derek Bell MD FRCPE
President
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh