Just another day in the life of a passionate health worker & lifelong learner.
Introduction to the blog.
Happy New Year!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog:
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.
Click here to see the complete report & don’t forget to leave suggestions for future posts in the comments!
Happy New Year!
TEDMED 2012 was a short but inspiring 4 days of learning. It started with an 8 hour flight from Heathrow, London to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. My first impressions of the city (as a first time visitor) was that the people are generally warm and friendly. I did a lot of walking around with the typical touristy mindset for the first day or 2. As luck would have it, I had some peers who were in the same boat. I met up with some fellow scholarship awardees and we explored some of the less touristy parts of the city on the first night.
On the second day, I set off for TEDMED at the Kennedy Centre of Arts. As far as venues go, this art museum comes second to none: expansive, grand and all that glitters is not spared. I felt like a teeny weeny ant bouncing around in it’s majestic and spacious splendour and took some pictures (below).
The TEDMED breakfast was hosted in the social hub tent – aptly named because this space demanded social interaction. They didn’t call it the ‘Inspiration Bar’ for nothing. You literally strolled past one amazing live demonstration of health innovation after another. So without really planning to, I found myself gasping or whispering ‘awesome’ and heard my exclamations echoed by someone else who had either noticed the same thing or something else worth noting. And so the conversations flowed.
TEDMED attracted 1,800 people across the globe from various health disciplines. Of this, only 200 of us had scholarships and the remainder paid $4950 for a seat at the health innovation show that truly trumps all others. With 1,800 health innovation enthusiasts, the conversations were rapid and often a mishmash of imagination, creativity, expertise and some light hearted banter. And this all happened before we had even seen the speakers talks which were just as thought provoking.
I wont go over everything that I learnt from TEDMED – partly because it is so vast that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. What I will do is summarize my key 3 lessons:
I woke up to a great surprise this morning. Sadly it wasn’t breakfast in bed but it came close second to delivering a similarly good feeling: I woke up to a call informing me that I have been awarded a scholarship to attend TEDMED 2012 in Washington DC on 11-13 April. The TEDMED conference boasts an array of innovative thinkers and doers who have a shared passion for health and medicine.
This video gives a short summary of the purpose and scope of the conference:
My reasons for applying for the TEDMED scholarship are many but principally all to do with my keen interest in meeting people with a differing background and different views on the future of health.
Whilst I am looking forward to listening to the renowned speakers, I am even more so excited about talking to other delegates and finding out what brings them to TEDMED and how the conference might influence their lives and work. I will make sure I use periods at the conference when I am not enthralled to update the blog and tweet an update or 2.
Smart devices are becoming a part of our everyday lives. I can’t even remember the last time I went a day without using my iPhone. These devices unobtrusively connect us, collect information for us and help us to report what’s happening in our lives or what we find of interest.
Healthcare is seen by some as the last frontier when it comes to technology adoption. The take up of technology has tended to be slower in health care due to several factors which I will not go into here. What I really want to tell you about is an exciting and emerging shift in this take up.
A group of enthusiasts, early adopters, clinicians, developers and business minds have recently joined up to form The Healthcare App Network for Development and Innovation – HANDI. Yours truly has ofcourse joined up.
HANDI is made up of people with a range of expertise who have one thing in common: we all believe that healthcare apps for people who use services, carers and healthcare professionals will be key to transforming and improving healthcare.
This shift towards embracing and developing health apps has a real potential to transform healthcare. In the near future, it will become standard to access our health needs through electronic devices such as smart phones. Instead of doing an annual health checkup (e.g. a cardiac risk assessment), near real-time health data access will be used to provide rolling assessments and alert us and a clinician of changes to our health risk based on biometrics assessment and monitoring (blood pressure, weight, sleep etc).
Predictive health analytics, health information intelligence and data visualisation will make spotting, reporting and addressing risks and abnormalities not only faster but more cost effective by reducing the need of big facilities like hospitals. While much work remains to be done to connect these devices and the data they generate in universal and interchangeable ways, there are standards evolving to ensure that the data will speak the same language, that the analytics, algorithms and data output are validated, and that the collective potential of these devices will paint a truly holistic picture of our health.
I dont know about you, but the vast possibilities of this technology certainly sends a tingle of excitement down my spine.
If you would like to know more about health apps and would like to be involved please visit the HANDI website or join us here.
A balanced view somehow sounds boring doesn’t it? Balanced doesn’t sell. Sensational and extreme views are what grab people’s attention. The point to my musing is perhaps best demonstrated by this exchange:
I was speaking to a colleague the other day who bluntly told me how she avoids the news. The topic had come out after discovering that she would be going on holiday to a destination that’s been frequenting the news lately – and not for sun, sea and sand, but for an all together different reason of rising civil unrest and casualties.
This got me thinking about all the bad news that’s reported. Working in health, I am naturally more likely to notice all the flack and bad press that health organisations and health professionals receive. I am also more likely to think the health sector gets a raw deal. Don’t get me wrong, the imperfect systems that health services and people within them work in are prone to mistakes – small and big.
I do believe that the portrayal is unbalanced. I and a lot of people I work with are usually witnesses to remarkable displays of bravery, kindness and humanity. But you will be hardpressed to hear about any of these acts. When was the last time you read a news article about a successful operation that saved a life? A foiled infection that was stumped out by clinicians acting quickly and effectively? A life saved through a compassionate listening ear of a mental health professional?
These and many other acts happen every minute of every day if not more often but you wont ever see them heralded for the great works that they are. And some may be thinking at this point that people who do this work need not have these acts acknowledged: after all they do get paid for their jobs. Well I beg to differ. In my humble opinion, I think there needs to be a balance between broadcasting failures (which we see plenty of) and showcasing successes. This may very well propel those working in health services to thinking differently about their work and dare I say, even take pride in the work they do to look after and care for those who are ill.
To this end, I am doing my little bit and sharing a video of a group of people who have done just that: done what they can to help someone in need and shared their work publicly to encourage others.
Here is a video of some that work:
OK I will admit it: until 4 years ago, I didn’t know who Mary Seacole was or what she did or indeed what she represents. How ridiculous is it that a woman who saved so many lives and significantly contributed to what we now collectively call nursing – is so poorly acknowledged.
Mary should be in the same league as other outstanding nurses like Florence Nightingale. Sadly 150 years ago, Mary’s non-white heritage meant that she was often met with resistance and sometimes downright hostility, when trying to help people who were in obvious need of any help offered. The hardships Mary experienced whilst trying to do what she loved i.e. nursing people back to health, still resonate today.
One hundred and fifty years later and I am sitting here reflecting on the role I play as a non-white nurse. I have not, by any stretch of imagination, encountered the same obstacles of my ancestors/predecessors as far racial prejudice. But there are still challenges of race to grapple with in my everyday work and more widely at a strategic and organisational level. These challenges require a multitude of exceptional and transformational leadership qualities, in order to transcend prejudices and work towards common goals that transcend race or any other characteristic.
It is well established that people from minority groups generally get short-changed when trying to access services to help them and their families. I and five others have recently (25th October) been awarded the Mary Seacole Award to undertake 6 separate projects to promote equality. This is a great honour for many reasons. Perhaps the most important reason being that this award puts me in a position to do my part in righting wrongs experienced by those who do not always have a voice. This is a very humbling position.
I will try to keep this blog updated over the coming year so as to share my journey as I embark on the Mary Seacole Award project – I hope you join me by posting your comments & views.
Now people who know me also know that I am a tad obsessed when it comes to IKEA. Yes I admit it. I have driven to IKEA at near enough midnight, walked around the isles for hours only to end up just buying a tin opener or something seemingly insignificant. But I see it as time well used. I have always loved the design concepts on show and used many of them as inspiration for my own living spaces. And now I am equally loving the photography in IKEA‘s latest recipe book “Hembakat är Bäst”.
Inside the book, individual ingredients take as much of the centre stage as the finished product. IKEA state that they were inspired by Japanese minimalism to present graphic still-life portraits on a warm and colourful stage.Continue reading “IKEA “Hembakat är Bäst” Visually Stunning Baking Book”
In his book, Simon attests to the fact that most of us know what we do and most know how to do what we do but lose focus on why we do what we do. He additionally links consumer and worker behaviour to be most strongly influnced by the ‘Why?‘ question. This question is the basis of our beliefs and feelings: our loyalty, our trust etc.Continue reading “Why Ask Why?”
Mental Health Geek