‘Empty plinth’ to fill at EHI Live 2013

EHI Live 2013 has an ‘empty plinth’ in its conference programme; like its famous counterpart in London’s Trafalgar Square, the occupants of the platform will be filled after public debate and discussion.

EHI Live director, Linda Davidson, said: “We try our best to capture the themes that are on our readers’ minds when planning the conference. This year we decided to go direct and ask who the EHI Live attendees want to see on the platform and what topics should be on the programme.

“Obviously we can’t promise to follow up all suggestions, but we will do our best to find empty plinthers who will inform, educate and entertain.”

Six topical themes have been identified already for the conference at EHI Live 2013, which will be at the NEC, Birmingham on 5-6 November, and is free for all visitors.

One of these will continue The Big EPR Debate that EHI has been running to ask its readers for their views on the way forward for electronic patient records in the NHS.

The Big EPR Debate stream will pick up on the main discussions – and give the audience an opportunity to say whether NHS England’s guidance, due out today, has put the health service on the right path this time.

In the same vein, EHI Live 2013 will run a theme on ‘paperless or paper-lite?’ that will ask how far the health service can go towards meeting health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s target to have a paperless NHS by 2018.

The next two themes will also tackle ‘big picture’ issues. One will look at ‘creating a zero harm NHS’, which was one of the pledges in the government’s response to Robert Francis QC’s second report into the scandal at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

The second will look at ‘making Caldicott2 work’, and will explore the impact of Dame Fiona Caldicott’s second report on information governance on health informatics.

Finally, topical themes will explore ‘big data and healthcare’ and the potential impact of open source solutions on healthcare.

That still leaves plenty of hot topics in health informatics. So if you have a view about how we should fill the empty plinth, send us your suggestions by posting a comment below or emailing event manager, Lauren Hoodless.