Connelly to open HC2009 in Harrogate

The British Computer Society has confirmed Christine Connelly and Martin Bellamy as key speakers at its HC2009 event.

Christine Connelly, chief information officer for health, will be opening the three day event, which takes place 28-30 April in Harrogate.

Connelly is expected to address health informatics in a broad sense, including how it affects policy and professionalism. It is also hoped she will talk about how health informatics strategy is being developed within the Department of Health.

Martin Bellamy, NHS Connecting for Health’s director of programme and system delivery, will open the second day of the event by providing a presentation on more specific individual changes at NHS CfH.

Mark Davis, executive medical director of the NHS Information Centre, will also be giving a keynote presentation on the vision of secondary use of clinical data in 2010.

The event organised by the BCS Health Informatics Forum is targeted at professionals actively involved in health informatics in the NHS, together with the growing number of people who increasingly need to know about heath informatics.

The event will include a series of talks for NHS newcomers explaining how the NHS works, while more in-depth support sessions will be provided for researchers.

The conference will consist of five streams, with themes addressing the use of informatics to improve clinical practice, health informatics policy and strategy, care in different settings and using academic research and development. The fifth stream will include demonstrations by suppliers.

The BCS promises a strong focus on practical experiences in the implementation, evaluation and use of information technology in different settings.

Glyn Hayes, former chair of the BCS Health Informatics Forum, told E-Health Insider: “This year speakers will be talking about actual experiences, technical issues and the problems the NHS is facing.

“We deliberately wanted to have lots of people from the field talking about their experiences so the lessons that have come out of NHS Connecting for Health in particular can be discussed.”

On the third day, Dr Hayes will provide the first public preview of the independent review of NHS IT which he has been chairing. The independent review was commissioned last August by shadow health minister Stephen O’Brien.

The intention had been to publish a first draft in December, with the final report to be published by the end of March 2009. It is now likely to not be published until May.

Link: BCS HC2009