Rise and shine.

Byline: t caldwell

Rise and shine

Developments in health information are running at a feverish pace. All the signs and symptoms point to a fast-changing sector and the prognosis is good for health information professionals willing to work in a changing world.

Information professionals in the health sector, perhaps more than any other, face issues and opportunities from a wide variety of sources. New products and services from content providers can drive improved and adapted service levels from information professionals. At the same time content providers are increasingly aggregating content into meaningful information, and integrating information delivery into workflow products for the practitioner, bypassing the health information professional.

Developments in hardware technologies such as tablet PCs and PDAs are also putting information into the hands of practitioners while the trend towards direct access of health information by practitioners and researchers is driven by the development of Web 2.0, fostering peer-to-peer information handling.

Once the much delayed NHS electronic patient record (EPR) system is fully introduced, health information will centre on it. The development of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is much debated and there are many issues of critical interest to the health information professional, ranging from privacy and security to data concerns such as consistent data input and secondary data use and analysis.

Health information professionals who have recognised their interest in the debate have struggled to make their voices heard. Information professional body CILIP's special interest group spends time issuing responses to various consultations on health information to raise awareness of the interest of the health information professional.