Changes in the NHS will put massively increasing demands on GPs information systems. Primary Health Info 2012 the spring conference of the British Computer Society; Primary Health Care Specialist Group (PHCSG), will help you understand the challenges facing GP IT and how you can address them. 

The conference is targeted at UK primary care and in particular UK general practice. The conference takes its theme from the NHS Operating Framework 2012/13 which requires “ the NHS to focus on delivering transformational change through clinical service redesign” looking at “Using IT and Information to Deliver Transformational Change” with the following themes:

1.  Data Quality and Patient Safety
     Monitoring and improving data quality, quality data for safer care, clinical safety testing and assurance,
     knowledge tools and decision support to protect patients from harm
.
2.  Tools to support Clinical Commissioning
     Analytics, data sharing, communications, commissioning support.

3.  Engaging patients through IT
     Patient record access, PMRs, patient portals, social networks in health care, remote consultations and the
     patient-computer interview

4.  Ensuring the Continuity of Personal Care
     Many pathways - One plan, managing handovers and distributed care, supporting care management.

5.  Interoperability
     Approaches to interoperability, managing privacy and consent, the role of information models, terminologies,
     datasets and standards (HL7, SNOMED, OpenEHR, Core Clinical Headings, ITK,
     CIMI, SCI-XML (Scotland, NI and Wales).

6.  Future of GP Computing
     Future funding and support (after GPSoC, NPfIT and the PCTs), new paradigms for IT service delivery to
     Primary Care - there’s an app for that? Shared medication record where next for GP2GP?,
     open source approaches.

7.  Four nations - One challenge
     Bringing together the ideas and experience of all the home nations.

The PHCSG is the leading organisation in primary care informatics, bringing together experts from all sectors of the health informatics community with front line clinicians and managers working in and supporting primary care. 

Last years conference was extremely successful with just under 200 attendees who gave us excellent feedback. The event is designed as an intimate one to encourage networking, with most delegates attending for both days and staying at the conference hotel. We hope to get even more delegates this year, but numbers are limited to 300. 

I hope that you find the conference stimulating and useful, and that you will continue to engage with PHCSG as we work together to address the challenges we face. 

To find out more visit us at www.primaryhealthinfo.org or the conference blog at www.phinfoblog.org

Ewan Davis - Conference Chair