Connecting up Discourse internationally - I need your thoughts

Discussions
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I’m going to be meeting up with the Digital Health Networks chaps and Louise from HISA on Monday in London. We are going to discuss how to get the most from Discourse both locally and internationally, as we are using the platform in Aus, NZ, and the UK.

At present, being within the Digital Health Networks is free for us and absolutely great in many ways - but also comes with some significant downsides (poorly targeted emails, partial control of data, limited branding, limits on moderator numbers, etc). We can either stay in and optimise this as best we can, or go our own way and focus on building links between the inevitable silos that we build.

I’d love to hear any thoughts / constructive suggestions / wisdom to guide our negotiations; either in this thread or messaged directly to me.

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Good morning Nathan

What is the clinical network you set up with Karen Blake using Or is this the same platform?

Ngā mihi
Stuart

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hi @NathanK
I just wanted to say, I’ve found this forum incredibly useful. Out of it I’ve made contact with several people, one of whom is @emily.gill who has been amazingly helpful in reviewing my architecture to help ensure we cover the needs of both primary care and patients with health equity needs. This has led to changes in my approach and high level design patterns, which will (project funding willing) translate to more inclusive healthcare applications that meet the needs of people better. Also, I’ve been able to connect people with like minded people and get snippets of what is happening elsewhere, which is very useful.
‘Go our own way’ I think could lead to disconnected silos where we don’t achieve the great things we could have.

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CiLN is indeed using this platform (Discourse) and is the central group in the #nz-forum. Discourse was chosen because it was offered at no cost, and has been very successful with the similar (but older and larger) clinical network (the CCIO network) in the UK. Oh, and all the others have significant issues.

Thank you David, and I’m glad it has been so helpful. Do you mean internationally or locally? And if we go for silos, we would ensure that they are indeed thoroughly connected (shared user database, ease of movement between them, etc)

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@NathanK
I’ve had good success with reaching out locally… internationally I tried to reach out to guys from Ireland as I love their architecture work https://www.ehealthireland.ie/ but didn’t get any responses back.

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Hi Nathan

Is there a conference on in London.?

I’m heading to London on Monday and keen to know if any useful meetings.

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Just a private meeting I’m afraid.

However, later next week there is a key digital health event - the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo which would be well worth attending. I’ve got childcare issues so can’t make it unfortunately.

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Hi Nathan

I am on nights and just putting a few thoughts together, so sorry if they are a bit random.

I am a registered nurse and work in both NZ and Australia and have COINN colleagues who are in the UK. I am a member of HISA and on the NIA board.

My interest is self driven from a nursing perspective and how exciting the potential for progressive change in health delivery is. I have not got an informatics qualification …yet!

I have a keen interest in all three countries.

I have been following the informatics journey in all three, and I am sure your meeting with Louise, to discuss the value of collectively forging ahead under the Digital Health Networks or, conversely, develop into silos with more targeted focus, will be enthusiastic and positive.

There are pros for and against, but from a nursing perspective and recognising the huge potential for change in health care delivery, I would like to think we would all be sharing the latest tech info to implement progressive changes.

Why?

Well, I see the potential for blockchain technology making it possible to change the nursing workforce, it may well become much easier to be a travel nurse and knowing that AU, NZ and the UK are all singing from the same song sheet, all up to speed, would make working in each country much easier.

Also, really nailing clinical governance issues is important and consistency in delivering these standards in all three countries would be reassuring. It would save duplicity in tech development and integration if pros and cons are shared.

Although, working in smaller regions does lend itself to progress being made, whereas the larger the group of influence, inefficiencies are more keenly felt.

Would it be possible to have the overarching Digital Health Platform with the targeted informatics reaching the specific audience by sensing the location of the device? :thinking:I travel a great deal and my phone is always sending me regional and country notifications for information!!!

As for the tech development and research, that all gets very political and constrained by finances. Maybe, given the political climate and economic outlook, pooling tech resources might be an advantage.

Looking forward to hearing the outcomes of the discussions

Say ‘Hi’ to @louise_schaper for me, sorry to have missed HISA, but have HINZ on my radar!

Bye for now

Judy Hitchcock

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Thanks Judy for your thoughts. Indeed, the informatics challenge here is to simultaneously facilitate local targeted dialogue at the same time as a global overview / conversation. I believe that it is worth a lot of effort to get this right.

Now that is an interesting idea, and not one that we have explored. Discourse does record the location of devices; I will look into doing this. What do you think, @pacharanero?

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@NathanK, I think discourse is great, there may be some limitations, but theses are bearable. It is better to have the pooled resources of commonwealth informaticians then sIloed separate chapters. (ie it would be great to get some more Canadians https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/en/) Hopefully our UK countaparts see the value as well

I think the key is delivering value by facilitating local discussions, but with access to the main international pool to sound out ideas and solve problems. Also with same governance over membership so it does not become a marketing or self promotion channel.

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'I concur,

I discovered the potential for appropriate regional redirection of pertinent information for specific regions, when researching how to address the diverse needs for the COINN website upgrade.

(Council of International Neonatal Nurses)

COINN needs to share education and events specific to each region. It can be done, ( I am assured) if we had the finance to facilitate the upgrade. The web site would have international access, but default to regional focus and yet still provide the generic topics of interest.

Its still just a future option at the moment.

Sometimes I think I am impatient for the future🤣

Good luck with the discussions

Judy

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Sounds good Nathan,

I was advocating for doing exactly this at HIC last month with @karenblake.
Glad to know it’s progressed. Well done @NathanK! I appreciate the work you’re doing on breaking down international barriers.

I’m co-Chair of the Clinical Informatics Community of Practice (equivalent of CiLN in Aust.) which sits as part of HISA. We have a steering committee meeting next week.
I’ve proposed some re-thinking of how HISA operates regarding community engagement (inc. online forums) and am awaiting feedback.

I think it could be good to get the NZ CiLN leaders to join our committee’s call at some stage and discuss your experiences in establishing CiLN and it’s significant success to date. I think Aust could learn a lot from what’s being done here in NZ.

Let me know what you think @Ruth_Large, @NathanK, @karenblake and @RMcBeth

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I’ve recently met @markjsanta, who you know well and who set up the CoP. He is also keen to both emulate CiLN’s success online as well as connect things up internationally. It sounds very encouragingly like we all want the same thing.

I have set up @aus-clinicians as a starting point, with #aus-forum as well. The good thing about Discourse is we can move things around with ease.

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Hi @david.vink - I also run the ehealthireland.is site but it has very little traffic on it - to the frustration of the CCIOs in Ireland, who have recently decided to join us here on this forum. The problem with the ehealthireland.ie site is that it’s run by their HSE, which is the equivalent of it being run by the DHSC or NHS England here. Comms teams’ rules and other impediments abound and so it’s not used.

The Ireland group on here is at https://ehealthforum.nz/g/ireland-network

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Thank you for your thoughts and comments; we had a very productive meeting yesterday regarding how we are going to handle multiple countries, digital health forums, data flow, etc. We decided:

  1. That currently the best way to deliver effective support to national groups while also providing international conversation and sharing is to host all of the countries in the one Discourse instance, ie this one.
  2. We will work together to optimise the Digital Health Network so that it better meets these objectives.
  3. We intend to put this in writing (as an MOU between countries or similar) to ensure clarity of the data, privacy, and financial relationships that will result.
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Thanks for the up date, Nathan

Judy

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It’s good to have your update and be kept updated - thanks. kind regards Gillian