Newcastle University win ‘triple sweep’ at inaugural Faculty of Clinical Informatics Annual Scientific Conference
Presenters from Newcastle University win three awards at the first FCI Scientific Conference, for Prestigious Guest Presenter, Best ePoster, and Best Scientific Paper
20 February 2020
Dr. Sarah Slight delivered the day’s Prestigious Guest Lecture, with a talk entitled “Health technologies, big data and the future of clinical informatics”. This was an interesting and insightful presentation covering a wide range of important work, including her Lancet paper on medication errors that she co-authored with Clare Tolley, and using AI to predict infection and subsequent sepsis. Sarah gave credit to the great team that helped her, with a specific mention to Nehal Hassan & Bob Slight for their excellent contributions to the sepsis work. Sarah also spoke about the very exciting £12.3 million Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases (EDoN) initiative which she and Clare are collaborating on with Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Sarah was awarded a black & gold Waterman pen gift set engraved with the FCI logo, as well as a certificate (this prize was also awarded to Dr. Suzanne Bakken, the International Guest Presenter).
The winner of Best Scientific Paper was Dr. Clare Tolley (pictured, top right), Senior Research Associate in the School of Pharmacy at Newcastle University for the paper: A Prospective Observational Study to Investigate Medication Errors and Adverse Drug Events in a UK Hospital Whilst Optimising Electronic Prescribing. Clare was awarded a £250 gift voucher to divide between the authors and a certificate!
I thoroughly enjoyed the different scientific presentations and instructional sessions and it was a great opportunity to learn and interact with colleagues. The whole event ran smoothly and I’m looking forward to next year!
Esther Moore (Pharmacist & Former Pharmacy Student at Newcastle University) was awarded Best ePoster, describing a review she conducted with Slight and Tolley on: A systematic review of the impact of health information technology on nurses’ time. Esther won a £50 gift voucher and certificate.
Both winners were also awarded a free delegate space at any of Healthcare Conferences UK’s future events. Thanks to HCUK for this kind offer.
Many congratulations to the winners!
Clare presented her paper at the conference during the second Scientific Paper session. Sarah and Clare also ran an Instructional Course “Informatics – Innovative Approaches to Pharmacy”, alongside Andrew Heed (Lead Clinical Informatics Pharmacist & CPIO), at which they discussed the interesting findings from their recent £1.5 million EU MedEye study at Newcastle Hospitals.
Lastly, there was also a brilliant instructional course on the practical uses of SNOMED CT, demonstrated by Dr. Tejal Shah, Lecturer at the Institute of Coding at Newcastle University (Tejal is also co-founder of the FCI Associate network and runs the Institute of Coding Health Informatics course, accredited by the FCI).
So a very busy and successful day for Newcastle University all round! We hope they got as much out of the event as we did from their contributions, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate on moving forward.
Newcastle welcome any CCIOs (or indeed any other interested people) from across the UK who have an interest in the use of AI in clinical practice, more specifically around the prediction of cancer, cognitive impairment, infection & sepsis, to get in touch. They are currently carrying this work out at Newcastle University, but would be keen to explore the possibility of expanding this to other regions of the UK, should the opportunity arise. If you’re interested, please contact: sarah.slight@newcastle.ac.uk.