The third digital health programme blog

A few weeks have now passed since our inaugural Wessex Big Data event, which was attended by just over 150 people. This was a great turnout, and reflects the amount of interest people have in making use of the wealth of data at our fingertips.

For those of you who were unable to attend, but are interested in finding out more about the event, you can go to our Slideshare account to view a number of the presentations delivered by a range of innovative and enthusiastic speakers.

As well as some nationally-recognised Big Data organisations joining us on the day, we heard from a number of Wessex-based contributors including Hampshire Fire and Rescue, and the Ordnance Survey. Two academics from Southampton University, Professors Paul Roderick and Nick Sheron, were able to demonstrate how they had made use of data from the Hampshire Health Record (HHR) to progress their studies with very interesting results. While Simon Beaumont, head of information at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, gave us a fascinating insight into how data visualisations available through the Tableau server were changing staff’s perception of data.

Building on the success of our first event, we now plan to establish an overarching steering group to provide the strategic direction for the digital health programme over the next year. We anticipate this group will support us to take forward a series of initiatives which will underline the benefits of data to the health and care sectors.

Several people have already come forward to express an interest in engaging in future activity, and if you are keen to join us on this journey we would be delighted to hear from you. I will be touching on more outputs from the Big Data event in my next blog.

One final note for those of you who have previously read my blog: you will know I am an avid Saints fan.

I was delighted therefore to witness the obsessional tendencies of another die-hard football fan, played out by one of our speakers on the day (you know who you are!). He decided to smuggle a Portsmouth Football Club beanie (a head-hugging, brimless hat) into St Mary’s stadium under the noses of the security personnel...to take a selfie of himself in the Saints’ stands!

@KatieWessex

#BigDataWessex