Paperless working, a zero harm NHS and EHI’s Big EPR Debate are high on the agenda at this year’s EHI Live conference and exhibition held in Birmingham.
For the first time entry to the EHI conference streams will be entirely free with modest fees charged for some co-located, independently-produced meetings.
Held at the NEC, Birmingham on 5-6 November, EHI Live 2013 will bring together popular features from previous shows with new meetings and activities.
EHI director Linda Davidson said: “We’re adopting the good NHS QIPP principle of improving the quality while reducing the cost to our participants. EHI Live has developed over the years as the place where the e-health community meets and our big tent is now free to enter.
“Thanks are due to the exhibitors and sponsors whose enthusiastic support makes all this possible. Bookings for the exhibition are running at record levels but there is still room for more as we have a bigger hall this year. New faces and old hands are all very welcome.”
The move to a larger space was necessitated by a growing exhibitor list and continuous year-on-year growth in delegate numbers. So many suppliers have already booked that if the exhibition was held today it would be as big as last year’s event.
EHI director Linda Davidson said: “We had outgrown our old home in Hall 3a but are delighted to announce that we haven’t had to move too far. Hall 1 allows us to accommodate the growing demand for exhibition space, to provide better facilities to delegates and to open up more venues for networking.”
EHI Live continues to focus on the frontline use of technology by IT staff and clinicians alike with a newly created app zone, a feature dedicated to the use of open source technology and the co-location of the CCIO Leaders Network annual conference.
The exhibition floor will host popular features from previous shows, such as ‘The Pipeline’, which gives suppliers a chance to show what is coming next in healthcare IT, and the Best Practice Showcase and EHI Awards Theatre, which highlight practical examples of good work in NHS trusts.
The CCIO Leaders Network Annual Conference will also be co-located with EHI Live for the second year running, to promote the importance of clinical leadership in healthcare IT.
This year’s conference includes streams on the issues raised by The Big EPR Debate, health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s call for a paperless NHS by 2018 and the challenges of Dame Fiona Caldicott’s second review of information governance and information sharing.
And it will feature keynote speakers on other topical issues, such as ‘creating a zero harm NHS, ‘big data and healthcare’ and ‘using open source technology in healthcare’.
“Our conference addresses themes that are at the very centre of healthcare reforms in the UK. Giving delegates the chance to discuss these issues with like-minded people makes EHI Live 2013 an unmissable event,” Davidson said.
EHI Live 2013 is more than a meeting and more than an exhibition. For anyone involved in the use of information in healthcare it’s a golden opportunity to update knowledge, get answers to questions, meet the experts and think about the future.