The International Society for Digital health was launched this year and the Digital Innovation theme are intricately involved to contribute the patient-safety perspective.
On the 25th September 2019 at the University of Leeds, the International Society for Digital Health had its official UK launch. The launch was attended by over 70 international delegates from as far as Indonesia, China, India, the Gulf and neighbouring EU countries. Members of the Digital Innovation theme were not only in attendance but our theme Lead, Owen Johnson, hosted the event; Moreover, Owen is a founding member and part of the society’s Executive Committee.
Leading the way on the international stage
In June 2019, Owen Johnson was invited to speak at the International Society for Digital Health 2019 conference, with a talk entitled “Patient safety: the opportunities and risks of using AI in medical diagnosis and care”. At the event, he spoke about the motivation for a patient-safety agenda in healthcare information technology. In part, the motivation arises from the consequences of a mixture of over-reliance and under-utilisation of automation. It is concerns like these that the Digital Innovation theme are addressing in our Micronarratives project, wherein we are asking how real-time intelligence is created via human sensor networks.
The difficulty in finding the balanced path of appropriate use of IT and artificial intelligence is somewhat explained by the V, and T challenges that Owen spoke about during his invited talk, at the June conference. The V challenge refers to the five Vs of big data:
- Volume – How do we safely handle the very large amount of healthcare data being produced?;
- Velocity – How do we safely handle the frequency with which healthcare data is updated and made obsolete?;
- Variety – How do we safely handle the diversity of data types, formats, and delivery?;
- Variability – How do we safely handle the differences in the way healthcare care is generated and used?; and
- Value – How do we safely filter and prioritise the best healthcare data?.
The T challenge refers to safely handling the temporal effects of intervening with healthcare information technologies. Work by McLintcok et al. in 2014 showed how rates of coding and prescribing for incentivised conditions suggest anomalous prevalence and incidence during incentivised periods, but tend to reset to baseline values. It can be inferred that the timing of digital healthcare interventions can have anomalous effects with varying transience. These factors are front-and-centre for us in the Digital Innovation theme as we study the design and implementation of clinical decision-support tools (see Very Smart Cancer RATs).
What next for digital innovation of patient safety?
With these challenges in mind, the Digital Innovation theme continue to work in the overlap of digital technology, healthcare service, and safety science. Our member’s involvement in discussions at the international level facilitates collaboration and innovation for the promotion of patient safety in healthcare. The increasing digitisation and automation of society requires us to actively engage with the leading edge of our progress, and to take pre-emptive action to ensure our collective safety and effectiveness.
How can I get involved?
If you would like to keep up to speed or get involved with the International Society for Digital Health, join the LinkedIn open forum at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/10490340/.
You can also apply for membership by checking out http://www.theisdh.org/membership.php.