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Conference Overvue
The scientific programme of the
congress was made up of something in the region of 400 separate
presentations. These included three plenary keynote speeches, and
one plenary panel. As well as this, there were five tutorials which
attendees could take advantage of and no less than one hundred paper
presentations. On the practical side, there were seven scientific
demonstrations and about the same number of workshops which allowed
those nursing informaticians with a scientific bent to get a more
hands-on experience. The scientific programme on offer during the
congress was compiled from peer-reviewed submissions. These were
only chosen for inclusion at the event following the approval of an
international review committee which was made up of notable
individuals from all over the globe.
The 11th congress afforded new opportunities for attendees to
participate compared with previous ones. For example, a number of
the sessions were webcast over the internet, allowing remote
attendance. The use of technology was also on show during the
conference with many people utilising a smartphone application
specifically designed for the event which allowed people to check
over the programme of events. It also allowed them to make their own
itinerary by the simple use of their mobile phone.
Given the multilingual area that the congress was held in, a number
of the presentation sessions were made in French. Although the
conference was - officially at least - an English language one,
there were a number of sessions which had simultaneous translation
services from the speaker into French and Spanish. In what might
mark a sign of how future congresses will go, the plenary panel -
which dealt with nursing informatics from the perspectives of the
Americas - had a number of Spanish speakers addressing the audience.
That particular session was translated both from and to English
depending on which language the given speaker was using.
The congress was held at Hilton Montreal Bonaventure hotel and
exhibition centre, however that was not the only location that
attendees visited. In keeping with the knowledge sharing approach
that nursing informaticians take, there was also a site visit to the
McGill University Health Care campus which makes up part of Montreal
General Hospital. The hospital based session featured a presentation
about the facilities there and the work that was then underway to
construct new healthcare structures, designed to alter the six
existing campuses to four. The field presentations were made by
members of the Nursing Information Service, an institution which
reports to the local Director of Nursing and which promotes nursing
information management and technology needs.
Technology-focussed nursing informaticians also had the opportunity
view for themselves one of the hospital wards which had trialled the
use of smartphone technology in healthcare delivery. This technology
was found to have allowed the ward staff to both view and record
data at the bedside of the patient. According to the nursing staff
using the mobile applications, it enabled both medics and nurses to
view results - including vital signs data and trend graphs - easily,
reliably and quickly. The medical smartphone app is known as Open
Architecture Clinical Information System or OACIS, for short.
Following the good results of the initial OACIS programme, the use
of the mobile phones technology has continued at Montreal General
but the devices are no longer supplied by the hospital.
The next International Congress on Nursing Informatics, called
NI2014, will be held in Taipei in 2014. It is hoped that the
forthcoming congress will develop some of the information sharing
ideas and practices which were on show during the Montreal
conference.
