Dear Colleague
The British Computer Society is putting together a book on the history of health informatics in the UK. I have been asked to help in writing a chapter on Consumer Health Informatics and in the usual spirit of consumer-health-informatics thought the best way to approach this was to 'throw it open' to see how many colleagues on this list would help. The chapter is not meant to be a formal literature review but obviously we should aim to back up personal views with reference to the literature as far as possible. Please let me know if you are prepared to contribute. We will then form a sub group of the list and become the joint authors of the chapter. I will take responsibility for collating and editing it into (if I can) a coherent chapter, but all contributors will be named authors.
The starting point would be to let me know (a) what you think have been some of the significant trends which have enabled CHI to grow over the last 30 years, (b) who some of the pioneers have been and what they have contributed, (c) significant events in that history. The chapter is meant to have a UK focus but that would not exclude non UK list members contributing as clearly world events and trends will have influenced UK development.
Some of the people who come to mind for me are:
a) those people Mike Sheldon, Tony Hedley and others who pushed for patient held records in the 1970s
b) Bob Gann, Help for Health Trust and the databases of self help groups
c) Kings Fund patient participation conference (can't remember title)
Trends include:
a) general recognition (initially from those involved in chronic disease) of need for patient to take responsibility (eg diabetes)....early literature
b) development of technology (cheap computing and new interfaces 1980s, Internet 1990s)
I hope that you may be interested. If so, please contact me on [log in to unmask]
best wishes Ray
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