The main activity was in the field of promoting "nursing informatics' as aspecific topic. We organised several workshops and courses for nurses and I will like to mention two more important:

August 1997, in the district of Targu Mures, we organised, in collaboration with the County Health Authority, a course for all the head nurses of the district(county) i.e. 36 head nurses. We had as invited speakers prof. Bernard Richards from UMIST - UK and prof.dr.doc. Jana Zvarova from the EuroMISE Center of Charles University and the Academy of Sciences in Prague. The curriculum main topics were divided in 3 parts : 1) computer literacy; 2) nursing informatics (care plans, clinical guidelines, coding and classification, language and ICNP, standards, the electronic patient record and the nursing record as part of it, nursing management and research and decision support systems, computer assisted learning and instruction, Internet and WWW as a communication and documentation environment, the Telenuse and Nightingale projects); 3) introduction to databases - FoxPro .

October1997, a workshop on nursing informatics with special topic 'ICNP in Romania' and DRG like systems for nursing. At the national conference on Medical Informatics MEDINF'97 the working group for nursing informatics was highly appreciated and the board of the Romanian Medical Informatics Society decided to transform it in a 'special interest group'.

The NISIG of RMIS initiated the organisation of the Romanian Nurses Association for Medical Informatics. Until now they are not yet recognise by the Ministry of Justice but we hope that they will be in the next future. Why we needed a new organisation? For the RMIS cannot obtain sponsorship at the level of each WG and nurses are still looked at as 'not so important'! As an ASBL affiliated to the NISIG of RMIS they have higher chances to obtain support.

As a member of the project team of the Ministry of Health for the National Health Management Information System, I am trying to determine the developers to introduce a minimum data set for nurses in the electronic patient record. So far they (Sema Group) accepted the idea but we will see what changes we need to make in the Hospital Information System of the CHU-Grenoble and how much it costs.

In the frame of the Telenurse Project we had designed a local Web site for reaching the consensus on ICNP Romanian version.

April 1998, Marianne Tallberg visited Romania and lectured about Standards, Codinig, Classification, Language and Terminology in Bistritza Nasaud and Bucharest. The visit was a success and Marianne's lectures good catalizers.

We have a project to send 8 nurses to the EuroMISE course in Medical Informatics to be held in Prague from 14-25 September 1998.

Ioana Moisil
39, C.Kiritescu St.
RO-73106 Bucuresti, Romania
Tel: 40-1-3205605 (home)
Tel/Fax: 40-1-3112998 (office)
imoisil@sibnet.ro
Tel/Fax: 40-1 3112998

Mai 27^th 1998

In the summer of 1998 the NHS celebrated its 50th anniversary.

NSG has adopted a new constitution. Much of the work of the NSG Executive is now conducted by e-mail using a list services kindly hosted by Manchester University.

A bid was put forward to host NI2003 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The NSG's journal ITIN reverted to four issues a year under a new Editor. Some material from earlier issues is being used in distance learning packs offered by universities. NSG Focus Groups involved with education and with midwifery have held study days and provided speakers at sessions for other organisations. The study day 'Demystifying the Internet' is described in Nursing Standard On-line at http://www.nursing-standard.co.uk/vol13-09/ol-art.htm

The autumn conference in 1997 was shared with the Primary Health Care Special Interest Group (shared membership at reduced rates is available with PHC) and NSG members comprised 2/3 the audience. The annual conference of the NSG for 1998 was cancelled, instead plans are being made for a satellite session at the Healthcare Computing Conference in March 1999. NSG members are also involved in planning the main conference and in refereeing papers.

The NSG page on the World Wide Web includes membership details, information about ITIN an index to past issues, abstracts and some articles published in early issues. Most of the proceedings of NSG conferences, held in 1994, 1995 and 1996, printed in The INFOrmed Touch Series were added to the NSG website. Grants have been obtained to print two more booklets in this series. URL: http://www.man.ac.uk/bcsnsg/

Representatives from NSG have continued to contribute to the work of the Nursing Professions Information Group which advises the NHS Executive.

The Co-ordinating Committee of the BCS Health Informatics Specialist Groups of which the NSG is a member carried out a detailed review of its role and strategy. NSG submitted a lengthy paper.

A policy for the NSG Archives was devised. These with the NSG Library are sited at the University of Surrey. Access for NSG members and researchers continues to be via the Head of Health and Medical Information Services Tel: +44 01483 464 186 or e-mail: j.nordon@surrey.ac.uk

The Information Management Strategy for the NHS in England 'Information for Health' can be downloaded as in PDF from http://www.imc.nhs.uk/publication_frame.shtml (not yet active) or http://www.imt4nhs.exec.nhs.uk/strategy/full

The strategy emphasises that supporting clinical care should be the main focus and sets out plans for the next seven years including the development of electronic health records and electronic patient records. The government announced a large investment to support the strategy. A new NHS Information Authority is being set up with responsibility for developing national products and standards.

The Scottish IM&T Strategy can be found at:

http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk or at http:www.scotland.gov.uk

The UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting has set up an Commission to establish new thinking about pre-registration education. One of the key issues it will address is the impact of new forms of information transfer.

In September 1998 one of NSG's members, Paddy McGowan, was elected to the Chair of the Nursing Professions Information Group.

In December 1998 NSG members will be offered the opportunity to join an electronic list service to enable them to participate in wider discussions.

In view of the confusion caused by the term 'information' it is felt that the term 'Nursing Informatics' may be more appropriate. This has helped to provide a boundary around the topic. The purpose of the RCN Nursing Informatics strategy is to enable the identification of priorities and the action plan needed to address these. It represents where the RCN wants to be in relation to Nursing Informatics.

Aims of the RCN Nursing Informatics strategy

o To influence the education and training of nurses in order to develop informed practitioners and effective decision makers through Nursing Informatics.

o To ensure that nursing aspects of information in records are explicit and developed from a nursing perspective.

o The RCN becomes a user and provider of information about nursing and nurses.

o Influence the development of the appropriate and relevant technology to support informed practice and effective decision making.

During 1997 there was a review of the 'status' of Nursing Informatics in the UK. This has highlighted a major gap in terms of research and development to underpin Nursing Informatics developments in the UK.

At the time of preparing this report the RCN has initiated a project to begin the development of a research and development agenda for Nursing Informatics in the UK.

In August 1998, the Danish National Board of Health distributed a test-edition of the "Catalogue of Treatment Procedures in Nursing". This test-edition is part of the Classification System (SKS) from the Danish National Board of Health that is to be developed into a common classification system for the entire Danish health system.

The purpose of the catalogue is to improve the coverage and the quality of the classification to make it an appropriate instrument for the registration of activites related to the individual patient. In future, this will be valuable in connection with the development of electronic patient records and better administrative systems regarding the patient, and instruments used for assesment of productivity and quality in the health care sector.

The classification has been develop to describe the service delivered to the patient, no matter who delivers the service. So, this classification does not relate to only a single group of personnel.

At the moment, comments are collected, and a final proposal is expected to be prepared at the beginning of 1999.

The starting point of the proposal is the classification of operations, and as a supplement other treatments than those included in the classification of operations. To make the basis of the work as extensive as possible, three working groups were established in order to prepare structured lists of procedures in their respective areas. The working groups represented general expertise within nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and internal medicine (non surgical specialties).

Subsequently, it has been decided to use the material developed by the three working groups to develop a commen classification of procedures for use in the registration of patients, electronic records, clinical data bases and individual projects. Material from exixting lists of procedures has been added to the structured lists of procedures of the working groups.

The Danish Nurses Organisation have replied to the Danish National Board of Health that the "Catalogue" is not structured in a logical way, is is not consistent, and that there are so many defects that the whole katalog ought to be reconsidered.

A structure of a couse of a patient disease is beeing developed and on national level, work is going on to create a national standard for the electronical heath care record.

Lise Therkelsen

Consultant