Conference planning in progress

Planning for the Digital Health Conference has continued, and Im pleased to announce the final running order of the day which I will be blogging throughout this week. I will be profiling each of our contributors over the coming weeks, so stay posted for all the details. Some of our speakers will be guest blogging about their interest in this field, and I would like to extend the invitation to everybody interested in this event- if you would like to blog for us about what you hope to learn, and what you hope to gain from and contribute to the conference, just email us at digihealthcon@gmail.com.

Firstly, attending the Conference is going to be a very active process. There are a few short talks, but the learning is going to be very participatory and you will all be adding value to our collective experience of the day by getting involved in whatever way you feel comfortable. Balancing this, we have also secured plenty of break-out space that will be available throughout the event. This is to ensure that there will be plenty of places to go and continue any conversations you strike up with the fascinating people at the Conference, and also if you just want some time out with your own thoughts and ideas. Were going to have lots of tea, coffee, snacks, and a buffet lunch provided, so all you need to bring is yourself and any devices you would like to use throughout the event.

We would like to encourage you to add to the learning resources we will be sharing by live-blogging, Tweeting, making short vox pop video etc as the day progresses. There will be opportunity to do this at the event, and you are, of course, welcome to use whatever techniques you like to record and amplify your own questions and thoughts. We will make every effort to engage with the conversations online during and after the event. Were using the hashtags digihealthcon (and digihealthhack) as the overviews of the events and we will be using specific hashtags to collate Tweets related to the different workstreams of the event, e.g. digihealthcon1, digihealthcon2 etc.

We are hoping to build the networks of people engaged in the work around developing digital innovations in healthcare, wherever you work, whatever your role in the health system. All your contributions will be valued. As ever, if you feel there is more we could do to facilitate broader access to the event, do let us know so that we can make any further arrangements. Look forward to seeing you there!

#MindTech: an Unconference

Digital Innovation and Mental Health

We are not the only innovative digital health event happening this year. For those of you interested in mental health, you may want to check out Mind Tech: an Unconference this Friday, 30th March 2012, if you can get to South London for the day.

Who is behind this event?

This is happening thanks to the kind support of The Young Foundation and the NECLES HIEC (North East London, Central London and Essex Health Innovation and Education Cluster), who are working with people from SI Camp (Social Innovation Camp), UCL Partners and Goldsmith’s.

I have previously blogged work done by Dan Mcquillan who is heavily involved with SI Camp and indeed is driving this project. He is a disrupter in the system (and I mean this as a compliment!) and a force for transformational change.

I was very excited when I received the invitation to attend this event, especially since Dan and I had been members of a planning team attempting to spark a mental health unconference a few years ago- perhaps we may yet get to work on an event together!

I’m personally sorry to not be able to attend the Unconference in person, because I feel sure that it will be a fantastic event and that some of the innovations coming out of it will be hugely exciting.

Register for Mind Tech: an Unconference

There is still time to register for this event!

People with lived experience of mental distress are particularly valued during this process, please follow this link and complete the questionnaire in order to be able to attend.

You may follow the Mind Tech blog here: http://unconferencementalhealth.wordpress.com/

Please find email addresses of representatives of the London HIEC and Young Foundation here: http://unconferencementalhealth.wordpress.com/about/

A Health Commons

Please note: this post is based on an extract of an earlier post by @ClaireOT, available here: http://claireot.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/a-health-commons-using-a-peer-to-peer-p2p-approach/

Health Commons

The idea of a Commons is the product at the end of the peer-to-peer process described earlier this week. We might regard the health of the nation as a health Commons, increasing health being the “product” of this work.

Why work towards a health commons?

One of the principles of the Commons is that we all have a stake in the outcome. In health commons, we may see a collaboration between public and private organisations, and individuals, both based internally within and external to those organisations, working together as peers.

The promotion of population level health initiatives could enrich us all because they result in a greater number of economically active citizens, a reduction in overall health spending, and most importantly, an increased level of health and happiness in the population.

We all benefit from working towards a Commons (in this case, we all want to be individually as healthy as possible, and promoting health of our fellow citizens also benefits each of us individually and as a group). This idea leads on to the notion that we are all peers in the Commons, that we exist in a dynamic that is as flat (non-hierarchical) as possible when working in this way.

Why adopt this approach now?

As we move into a time where resources will be stretched, the new way of working represented by these ideas offers an alternative to the cuts-based solution so frequently enacted by organisations attempting to survive in the new climate. Where we are seeing transformational change within health organisations, we are not yet embedding a truly transformational way to enact new ways to enrich our health Commons.

This approach has already been trialed in countries with more intractable issues in population health than our own, for example, a quick Google search led me to this study based in New Mexico.

How can we get involved?

Why not come to our Digital Health Conference and Hack on 29th and 30th June in Leeds, where we will use a peer-to-peer approach to work towards a health commons, together. For updates, follow us on Twitter as @digihealthcon, or email digihealthcon@gmail.com to register your interest in the event early. Tickets will be released through Eventbrite soon.

A Peer to Peer Approach

Please note: this post is based on an extract of an earlier post by @ClaireOT, available here: http://claireot.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/a-health-commons-using-a-peer-to-peer-p2p-approach/

Peer-to-peer approach

A technique often used to work towards a Health Commons is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) approach.

Michel Bauwens describes P2P

it’s a relational dynamic in which people exchange not with each other as individuals, but with a commons

Or, a way to develop a shared resource that is held by a group of widely distributed people. This is often facilitated by the use of digital technology.

Bauwens believes that

 (digital) P2P technology allows for a new form of socialization that is changing how people behave towards each other.

We could use non-hierarchical, peer-to-peer platforms and systems, which have developed in social movements who have used the net as a means to solve problems based within their communities. By using these ideas, we can respond to the crisis we face in health and social care funding, by working towards a health Commons, together.

Social activists such as Dan Mcquillan has captured how to use these principles within health and social care, and indeed more generally within the public sector.

In the presentation, Dan is arguing that the problems within the health and social sevices cannot be solved within the traditional hierarchical structures we have developed. He argues that in order to work together effectively, it has to be within new spaces where status and power are distributed equally between peers. This can be facilitated by the use of digital technology- as we may have experienced if we are users of social networks such as Twitter!

Digital Health Conference and Hack 2012

We aim to use a peer-to-peer approach at the Digital Health Conference and Hack, based in Leeds, 29th and 30th June 2012. At this event, we will be using peer-to-peer methodology to ensure that we use the benefit of the diversity of voices represented, and where everybody is valued for their contribution.

Please use #dhc12 to tag conversations about it, follow us on Twitter at @digihealthcon, and register early interest by emailing digihealthcon@gmail.com.