Tag: DOME

With 180 exhibitors and a huge number of presenters Vitalis 2017 was indeed vital. For a first time visitor such as myself it really made the impact of e-health on society tangible.

The exhibitions gave an understanding of the actors in the field, raging from service designers to robotics. (Plus more espresso than a man could drink, though I tried.) The presentations showcased how the same technology was introduced and effected health care on a many different levels. The combination of exhibition and presentation also created a nice tension between the promises of technology and the sometimes more complicated implementations of the same technology.

Given the sheer number of parallell sessions it was impossible to cover more than a few select presentations. The DOME consortium, of which we are a part, had great visibility with a track of its own. Jonas Moll of the HTO-group has written more on this topic. Quite impressive was also the fact that our students had been invited to give their view on the future of health care. Given how professional they were, I would say it looks promising. I also enjoyed the presentation made by Carl Johan Orre from Malmö University on the topic of person centered technology.

I might be a bit biased but what I found really inspiring was the presentations made by our colleagues from Uppsala University Hospital with whom we are collaborating in a number of projects.

• Birgitta Wallgren discussed the complexities of large scale implementations in a setting with other ongoing large scale implementations.
• Annemieke Ålenius and her colleague presented lessons learned from the unplanned and almost week long downtime for the hospital’s patient journal system. While interesting in itself–for instance the comment that soon staff will have no experience of paper based back up routines–they also managed to convey some of the drama from behind the scenes. Still, it was a good thing that the crisis had a happy ending–thanks to a strong group effort from the whole hospital staff.
• Finally Morten Kildal discussed the various strategic paradigms that have succeeded each other as the solution for health care, including the current concept of value centered care. While no doubt new paradigms will come, Morten Kildal did make a solid case for the benefits of the current strategy–as well as the need for relevant data.

In summary all of the three presentations  stressed the importance of coordination–between implementations, in crisis or in the patient journey. Yet, what I really found positive for our ongoing collaboration was not only the fact that the presentations were analytical and reflective but that the presenters had a strong humanistic outlook.

This also, is promising for the future of eHealth.