Speakers announced for EHI Live 2013

Tim Kelsey, NHS England’s national director for patients and information, will be the keynote speaker at EHI Live 2013.

Kelsey leads a programme of top-name speakers at the two day conference and exhibition, which this year takes place from 5-6 November at the NEC in Birmingham.

EHI director Linda Davidson said: “We are delighted to be able to announce such a strong programme of speakers for EHI Live 2013 three months before the show takes place.

“Tim Kelsey will be appearing alongside colleagues from NHS England, giving visitors an unprecedented opportunity to hear about the very latest in national IT policy and programmes.

“Safety experts, IT managers, clinicians and developers are also well-represented on the programme, giving visitors a chance to debate the hottest topics in technology and information, and to hear from organisations at the leading edge of the possible.

“We are truly excited about this year’s event and, with tickets free to all this year, we look forward to welcoming as many visitors as possible to EHI Live’s new and bigger home in Hall 1 of the NEC this November.”

This year, the main conference at EHI Live 2013 has been re-focused around some of the big issues in healthcare IT.

A ‘Big EPR Debate’ stream has been introduced to take forward The Big EPR Debate that EHI launched in April in response to health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s call for a paperless NHS by 2018.

One of the speakers will be Carrie Armitage, the director of Cambridge’s eHospital programme, which is due to deploy the Epic EPR in one of the biggest implementations ever seen in the NHS.

An ‘information sharing’ stream will explore Dame Fiona Caldicott’s second report on information governance in the NHS, and how to make it work; just a few weeks after the government is expected to issue its formal response.

Speakers in this stream include Linda Mussell, the CP-IS programme manager at the HSCIC, who will be talking about its work to develop a new, child safety system for England.

Other strands include a focus on health 2.0 technologies, what’s next for open source, and the impact of big data while a ‘creating a zero harm NHS’ stream will look at how to use IT to improve safety in the NHS.

This will be led by Dr Maureen Baker, a GP and chair elect of the Royal College of General Practitioners and will focus on practical examples.

Finally, Kelsey’s colleague Beverly Bryant, NHS England’s director of strategic systems and technology, will explore whether the NHS can ever be paperless, or whether paper-lite is as far is it can go.

Bryant will also be speaking at a number of events co-located with EHI Live 2013, including the National Mental Health Informatics Network annual conference, which is in its fourth year but coming to Live for the first time.

Other co-located events include the Royal College of Radiologists Imaging Group annual meeting, the second CCIO Leaders Network annual conference, and a new event, the Health CIO annual conference.

At the same time, the EHI Live 2013 exhibition will include more than 100 exhibitors and a further host of popular features, including the Pipeline insight into what is coming next from the healthcare IT industry.

EHI Live 2013 is a two day conference and exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham on 5-6 November. This year, the conference is free for all visitors, and registration is open now.