Fall 1995 / Volume 2 / Number 3
Family Practice/Primary Care Working Group
American Medical Informatics Association
Edited by Richard Rathe, MD / rrathe@ufl.edu
Available on-line at http://medinfo.ufl.edu/other/pcnews/
Please send submissions to Dr. Rathe via email or fax at 904-392-6482.
Special Pre-SCAMC Edition
This is a special (WWW only) edition of the FP/PC WG newsletter.
19th Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC)
"Toward Cost-Effective Clinical Computing"
October 28 - November 1, 1995
New Orleans Hilton Riverside Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana
The AMIA Family Practice/Primary Care Working Group announces...
Moving Toward International Standards in Primary Care Informatics: Clinical Vocabulary
November 1-2, 1995
DoubleTree Hotel
300 Canal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
Examination of Existing Clinical Vocabularies and Coding Systems
This conference will address the globalization of health care. Participants will examine the important clinical vocabularies and coding systems used throughout the world. Experts will explain these systems and demonstrate their application with clinical data.
Standards for primary care informatics will be developed. Primary care practitioners must "seize the day" and not wait for others to determine future content and direction. Come and participate in shaping the future of primary care informatics.
Keynote Speaker: Christopher Chute, M.D., Dr.Ph.D.
When: November 1 and 2, 1995 (immediately after SCAMC). The conference will begin at 3:30 P.M. on November 1 and end at 12:00 noon on November 2.
Where: DoubleTree Hotel, 300 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA. SCAMC registrants attending this conference will need to arrange for an additional night's lodging.
Registration: To register for the conference, fill in the appropriate part of the SCAMC advance registration form on page 67 of the preliminary program. (If you need a program, call the AMIA office at 301-657-1291.) The cost of the conference is $75.
Additional Information: Contact Robert D. Price, Ph.D., by calling 501-686-6608 or sending email to rdprice@dfcm.uams.edu.
Program
Wednesday, November 1
3:30 P.M. Welcome and overview
4:00 Keynote: Christopher Chute, M.D., Dr.Ph.D.
4:45 Overview of UMLS
5:30 Refreshments
6:30 Coding Summary Panels, SNOMED, ICPC, READ. Presentation and discussion.
8:30 Break
8:45 Attendee questions and testimony
9:30 Adjournment and social hour
Thursday, November 2
7:00 A.M. Continental breakfast
7:30 Coding discussion groups
9:30 Consensus panel report and consensus clarification
11:45 Planning for the future
12:00 Adjournment
Supported in part by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)
It's a bird. It's a man. No! It's the world wide web! The latest data from InterGlob shows that there are more active web sites than mammalian life forms. Some argue this is evidence for extra-terrestrial intelligence, others claim that web sites are simply breeding. Whatever the reason, the Family Practice/Primary Care Working Group has not been left behind.
Our web page's address is:
Assembling the web page was, as usual, more work than one might expect. The resulting product is rather plain, but functional. The web page(s) are intended to: introduce the FP/PCWG to the world; facilitate communications and connections between members, other working groups, and organizations; and support working group projects.
As of mid-October there are 4 main web pages: an introductory and backgrounds page (main URL, as above); a projects page which currently describes the web project; a members page listing names, email addresses, and URLs; and a newsletter page. The members page presently lists only limited information for working group committee members. If you'd like to be listed there, follow the directions on that web page.
The web pages have four current overseers. John Faughnan and Richard Rathe are web masters. Gary Barnas is a consulting guru. Bob Elson, comm czar, reviews content and signs off on completed pages. Don't you love those catchy titles?
We want to decentralize development of future web pages. The FP/PCWG web pages should be maintained by many different people on different machines. There's no requirement for consistent format, but we do ask that every FP/PCWG page created have a link to the main FP/PCWG page (preferably at the top of the page). Bob Elson will authorize creation of links from the main page to new pages.
The projects page lists some of the web pages that need to be developed. Some, like automating creation of the members page, require expertise in web programming (CGI). Others require only basic knowledge of HTML. Potential projects include:
interest to FP/PCWG members, with links.
(SGIM, STFM, etc.)
to an appropriate index)
interests and activities
(fam-med)
are thousands of clinical pages already)
I'll be using the email addresses from the member registry to create a small one-way mailing list. This list will act like the table of contents of a magazine. It will let people know what's new on the web page, so they can decide whether to go and review it. These mailings will go out after significant changes or additions.
Richard is working on developing a communications forum using the WWW. He'll have more to say on that very important project. Once it's operational we'll have a link from the main web page to the communications forum.
If you'd like to work on one of the above projects, or have other ideas, email John or Richard. If need be, we can find a spot for your HTML document. If you don't know HTML, but want to provide content via email, we can work with that. Just email John, Richard, Bob, or Gary to work out an arrangement (see web page for our address information).
At our upcoming meeting we'll figure out who'll be web master for the coming year. If the web site moves there will be a place-keeping pointer to the new site. Whether I'm a "web master" or not, I'll have lots of ideas to contribute to future weaving!
John Faughnan, MD / jfaughnan@medinfo.labmed.umn.edu