Conference

Well, the new NVUG web site is up and running so well done to Simon Child for this. And welcome to the blog if you have navigated from NVUG.org to find it.

Conference this week so I am busy (overwhelmed, perhaps!) writing talks for the 2 days. Interesting breaking down the decision support for the 'Prescribing Safely' talk, and hope is that in Scotland DLM270 will return us to something more usable and safe. The SCIMP conference talk on Prescribing Safety was also enlightening, particularly the input from FDB on the difficulties that computers have working out if a patient has a condition.

Always reassuring, this, as it means GPs cannot (yet) be replaced by machines. Ahem. :-D

Also talking on SNOMED at the NVUG conference, which will be a) a challenge and b)slightly scary. I am expecting two people to turn up, right enough, one of whom will be lost and the other probably a clinical terminologist for a living. Joking aside, the challenge of moving the NHS people to using SNOMED is huge. Read has suceeded in part because people can understand it with only a little help. Thus they are able to explain it, and use it with success, in normal work. SNOMED is not easy to explain, nor immediately easy to use. I guess we are relying on the systems implementers to make SNOMED work under the bonnet, whilst all we need to do is steer in the right direction. Can that work? Let's hope...