For 5 days in June 2016, Geneva, Switzerland, will be the center of the world for caring and information technologies. The NI2016 congress, the biannual meeting of the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Working Group, takes place June 25 to 29, 2016. The theme of the conference is "eHealth for All: Every Level Collaboration-From Project to Realization." We selected the very best of 420 valuable submissions. NI2016 promises to be a fruitful international meeting, an important platform for exchange and learning.
The planning committee for NI2016 is organizing new special events for the June meeting, including a student contest and a fashion show of wearable devices.
* The student contest. A selection of six international and national groups were accepted over 12 proposals, to be announced.
* A "fashion show" of wearable and mobile devices will take place on Monday evening of the meeting. The fashion show is an innovative demonstration of wearable mobile devices, as they are integrated with life and activities of daily living. The public will be invited to join the international nursing informatics community to view the fashion show, which will take place on Monday evening.
TUTORIALS
Attractive tutorials are under preparation, addressing key areas of interest in nursing informatics. These tutorials will be free for participants of the full conference. Examples of planned tutorials include the following:
* "Analytic Strategies of Streaming Data for eHealth" (S. Yoon, M. Odlum, and Y.J. Lee). This tutorial aims to provide practical strategies of information on reducing dimensionality using examples of big data. This tutorial will highlight strategies of incorporating domain experts and a comprehensive approach to streaming social media data.
* "The Need for a Global Language-SNOMED CT Introduction (A. Adelof)
* "NI Continuing Education: Replicating a U.S. Model in Other Countries" (C. Bickford and K. Smith). This is an important tutorial for all who plan continuing education programs in nursing informatics.
* "Public Health Information Systems: Priorities and Practices for Successful Deployments" (M. Pearce). The tutorial will introduce public health information systems and provide best practices for implementing solutions related to immunization, communicable disease case management, and outbreak management.
* "Understanding New Types of Evidence Ready for Translation Into Nursing Informatics" (K. McCormick). The primary objective of this tutorial is to bring the participants up to date in genomic applications for nursing from birth until death. A secondary objective is to define at least 17 pharmacogenomics evidence guidelines ready for implementation into the electronic health record.
* "Human Factors for Nursing: From In-situ Testing to Mobile Usability Engineering" (A. Kushniruk, E. Borycki, T. Solvoll, and C. Hullin). The tutorial goal is to familiarize participants with human aspects of health informatics and human-centered approaches to the design, evaluation, and deployment of both usable and safe healthcare information systems.
* "User-Centred Design using Gamestorming" (L. Currie, J.C. Phillips, C. Ronquillo, and D. Roswell). The purpose of this tutorial will be to demonstrate and provide participants with practice in user-centered design methods that involve "gamestorming," a form of brainstorming where "the rules of life are temporarily suspended."
* "Using a FHIR(C)(R), CIMI, and Service Oriented Architecture to Achieve Interoperability" (L. Heermann Langford, E. Jones, and D. Hay). The aim of this tutorial is to describe the fundamentals of SOA and explain the value to nursing. An overview of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and Clinical Information Modeling Initiative (CIMI) will be provided, describing how they contribute to support SOA and its use toward enhancing clinical information systems and true semantic interoperability.
PANELS AND WORKSHOPS
The NI2016 agenda includes multiple panels and workshops, enabling interactive exchange and active learning experiences with the presenters. Planned panels and workshops include the following:
"How to Prepare a Nursing Informatics Conference Submission" (K. Saranto, E. Borycki, and I.N. Sarkar). This workshop aims to demystify the process of submitting papers to nursing informatics and MEDINFO Congresses for international authors.
"Nursing Informatics Beyond 2020; An Interactive Workshop Exploring Our Futures" (P. Murray, W. Scott Erdley, M. Hansen, H.-A. Park, S.K. Newbold, and K. Oyri). This interactive workshop is designed to reflect on and update participants' views on possible future scenarios for the development of health and nursing informatics.
"Documentation and Reporting of Nutrition-Interoperability, Standards, Practice and Procedures" (A.K. Rotegard, J.M. de Grijs, E. Ostensen, and A. Moen). This workshop will take some solutions aimed to improve nutritional status in elderly individuals as a starting point, to discuss international significance of such solutions, and point to future needs and opportunity for innovation.
"Engaging Nurses in the Design and Adoption of mHealth Tools for Care Coordination" (J. Murphy, S. Hull, O. Velez, and R. Austin). This panel will share ideas for the nursing informatics specialists in the audience on how mHealth tools are being designed and used for clinical practice, education, and research. They will describe specific mHealth projects they are involved in, give practical examples, and provide tangible tactics for nurses to make a difference.
"Urgent Call for Nursing Big Data" (C.W. Delaney, J. Sensmeier, R. Simpson, B. Westra, and A. Thoroddsen). There is an urgent need to ensure that nursing has sharable and comparable data for quality improvement and big data science. A national collaborative -Nursing Knowledge and Big Data Science-includes multistakeholder groups focused on a National Action Plan toward implementing and using sharable and comparable nursing big data. Panelists will share accomplishments and future plans with an eye toward international collaboration.
"The Future of Informatics in Aged Care: An International Perspective" (G.L. Alexander, P. Abbott, M. Fossum, R. Shaw, P. Yu, and M. Alexander). The panel will share global technology research initiatives in aged care. Panel objectives are as follows: (1) describe international informatics research initiatives by experts addressing health needs of the aged, (2) contrast health technologies used to manage aging patients, and (3) explain challenges and opportunities to improve healthcare informatics for aging patients. Intended audience are researchers, consumers, practitioners, vendors, care providers, and policy makers with interests in aged care technology design, development, implementation, and management.
"Reducing Technology-Induced Errors: Organizational and Health Systems Approaches" (E. Borycki, Y. Senathirajah, A. Kushniruk, S. Palojoki, K. Saranto, and H. Takeda). Technology-induced errors are a growing issue as healthcare modernizes. With the increased number of health information systems health professionals are currently using and the expectation that the use of these technologies will extend to other types of mobile devices and software applications, error reduction is essential.
The program for NI2016 reflects the best in nursing informatics science and practice from around the globe. Early bird registration is open until the end of February, so attendees should register as soon as possible. Together, we will make NI2016 a "Magnet Congress." NI2016 information can be located on the Web and via social media at the following locations:
http://ni2016.org
https://www.facebook.com/NI2016GVA/info
https://twitter.com/NI2016GVA
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/NI-2016-GVA-8129298
The author has disclosed that he has no significant relationships with, or financial interest in, any commercial companies pertaining to this article.