Conference Call

09 March 2005
03:00 PM to 04:00 PM EST

Present: Melinda Jenkins, Kevin Johnson, DavidLittle, AndySteele, Jeff Suzewits, SheilaTeasdale, MichaelWeiner, Alan Zuckerman

Apologies: Bob Gerstle, Mark Weiner, John Zapp

1. Rapid review of notes of last conference call, 22 November 2004

Notes accepted; no matters arising not otherwise on the agenda.

2. Progress on activities and budget items

Report required for AMIA by 31 March 2005. Most activities bid for were accepted by AMIA for funding.

• Fall Symposium Activities will not incur any expense for several months: pre-conference day and suite will be funded, preliminary work started (see item 5 below).
• Liaison activity with AAFP will be funded for one person, Sheila to contact David Bates and Jacob Reider to determine status of activity.
  ACTION: Sheila Teasdale
• Bibliography making good progress, some volunteers recruited in response to ‘news’ email
• Web pages established by Andy Steele and Michael Weiner
• Discussion of CD vs web-based bibliography: agreed to focus on web-based solution for development phase and revisit CD option for next year’s budget.

Medinfo paper funding was rejected; agreed to put paper on website when PDF available.

The paper has been published in Informatics in Primary Care, Vol. 12, No. 4; those wishing to subscribe through membership of the Primary Health Care Specialist Group may do so by joining and clicking “Membership” at that Web site.

3. Notification of new activity and budget items (if any) for submission to AMIA by 31 March 2005.

A proposal for PCIWG Awards was received from Mark Weiner too late for submission, but there is now provision for quarterly submission of budgets; agreed that Sheila would circulate the proposal and submit by 31 March 2005, along with reports noted in item 2.

4. PCIWG activities at AMIA Spring Meeting

Jeff reported that he, Marty Pfeiffer and Sheila Teasdale would be acting as facilitators during the meeting; the theme is ACPOE, Boston, 11-13 April 2005. Kevin Johnson will also be attending, and Melinda Jenkins might be there. Agreed that there would be no formal meeting of PCIWG.

5. PCIWG activities at AMIA Fall Symposium

Jeff had prepared a draft agenda which had been circulated before the meeting; the main areas for discussion were the timing of PCIWG activities and the proposed content of the meeting. The Fall Symposium opening ceremony is planned for the afternoon of Sunday 23 October 2005, so a full day Sunday is not an option. Agreed that Jeff would contact Dasha Cohen at AMIA and request meeting rooms and facilities for Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning for the PCIWG workshop, and Sheila would request Saturday evening for the PCIWG Business Meeting.

Content of the meeting to be a mix of plenary presentations from U.S. and elsewhere, and practical demonstrations of systems in use, these to be structured into categories, such as EHR, decision support, alerts and reminders, etc. Demonstrations to be invited from PCIWG members by using the PCIWG email list.

6. Communications issues

Michael was congratulated on his work on revamping the PCIWG website; he, Andy, and David Kendrick had a conference call in December about communications issues more generally; they proposed trying to increase use of the PCIWG email list and also wish to carry out a web-based survey about what the membership wants out of the group. Michael will circulate a draft survey for comment in the next week or two.

Sheila will email another ‘news from PCIWG’ to the email list, mentioning the new Web site, the Boston meeting, and the forthcoming survey.

7. PCIWG contribution to national initiatives

Alan Zuckerman mentioned a number of national initiatives (National Health Information Network [NHIN], Physicians’ EHR Coalition [PEHRC], Commission for Certification of Health IT [CCHIT]) and expressed some concern that the needs of primary care might not be being well articulated. He agreed to contact David Bates to clarify the relationship between PEHRC and NAPCI, and to email the PCIWG list about the activities of CCHIT.

He expressed a need for PCIWG to find out more about the use of SNOMED in primary care (if any); this might form the basis of a research study; Kevin Johnson to investigate possibilities.

Alan was also aware of a number of statements and papers which could be in danger of ‘overselling’ the benefits of health IT; again, there could be an opening for a number of research projects or surveys to try to establish the benefits, clinical, financial, social, of health informatics in primary care.

8. Date of next conference call

To be scheduled for early June.

« BibliographyStatus-December2004 | HomePage | BusinessMeeting050617 »