Everyone, including patients, doctors, nurses and other health professionals and app developers, is invited to submit new ideas of health apps and online maps they think would be useful.

For the next six weeks, people can visit maps and apps and suggest favourite apps, ideas for apps or health maps they would like to see, as well as vote for their favourite ideas submitted by others.

In the video below Dr Shaibal Roy explains more about apps and how you can get involved.

The call for ideas, suggestions and votes for apps or health maps come under one of these five themes:

• Personalisation and choice of care and support: for example, an app that allows a user to search for health information online
• Better health and care outcomes: for example, an app that allows a patient to manage their health condition
• Autonomy and accountability: for example, an app that allows patients to publicly rate and review their local health services
• Improving public health: for example, an app that tracks an individual’s levels of exercise
• Improving long-term care and support: for example, an app that helps with planning long-term care and support

Examples of existing apps that benefits patients include:

• Choosing Well app from NHS Yorkshire and Humber, gives addresses of the nearest NHS services
• Paediatric Emergency Drugs app developed by Evelina Children’s Hospital helps calculate correct medicine dosage;
• iBreastCheck, Breakthrough Breast Cancer – gives information about checking breasts for abnormalities;
• MicroGuide, NHS Southampton – gives practical support to clinicians when treating patients with infections;

The animation is the result of collaboration beween University of Ottawa Centre for e-Learning and Bellanet to create a series of e-Learning modules designed to strengthen knowledge sharing within networks, organizations, and individuals. Find out more at http://www.saea.uottawa.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=682&Itemid=649

Watch in pop-out window driven by Apture.

No More Consultants

From the inside cover: We know more than we think. This is the book that will help you to think more about what you know, and save you money along the way. No More Consultants takes you on journey through insight, improvement and innovation. With inspiring stories and expert advice from the their years of experience in helping organisations to value their own experience and reduce their dependency on consultants, the authors chart a course towards an engaged workforce and a successful business.

The animation below explains more.

Watch in pop-out window driven by Apture.

Chris and Geoff have set up a social network on Ning http://nomoreconsultants.ning.com/ to help bring interested minds together.

You can find out more Chris and Geoffon their websites:

• Geoff Parcell – Practical KM Ltd
• Chris Collison – Knowledgeable Ltd

Watch in pop-out window driven by Apture.

The search facility on the site means you simply type in your postcode or town and the site produces a list of all the counsellors in that area, allowing the individual to browse through them and select and contact one that would be exactly suited to their needs. The site is free to use.

The site has been running for four years now. Feedback shows that the Counselling Directory offers a valuable and much needed service for site users and counsellors alike.

Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organisations, are contributing in various ways to Medpedia. Since the announcement of the Medpedia Project in July 2008, over 110 organisations have contributed or pledged over 7,000 pages of content to the knowledge base, and thousands of people have become a part of the community. The goal is to develop a repository of up-to-date unbiased medical information, contributed and maintained by health experts around the world, and freely available to everyone.

Medpedia includes three interrelated services:

• a collaborative knowledge base
• a Professional Network and Directory for health professionals and organisations, and
• Communities of Interest in which medical professionals and non-professionals can share information about conditions, treatments, lifestyle choices, etc.

Interestingly the development of Medpedia seems like a positive response to the call from William Badke whom last year encouraged the denouncers from the academic community to embrace wikipedia, improve it and connect it into other digital resources. See his article published in Information Today (March 2008), entitled “What to do with wikipedia?“ in which he challenges the oft quoted antipathy in academic circles towards wikipedia.

Clinicians, from the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, and Academics in the field of Health Informatics, from the University of the West of England, have joined together to evaluate knowledge sharing across the NHS.

To support the team have developed an on-line survey aimed at NHS staff and also people from external organisations which interact with the NHS. Using this survey the team aim to:

• identify and explore examples of good practice in knowledge sharing across the NHS
• document and understand the obstacles to knowledge sharing which currently exist
• produce recommendations regarding how Heath Informatics research and best practice can help foster and support a culture of knowledge sharing across the NHS.

Complete the on-line survey at http://www.snapsurveys.com/nhsfaculty/