20 September 2005
Health Minister looks into "Information age"
Andy Kerr, Minister for Health and Community Care, today (Sept 20th) joined an open event -
"Health In The Information Age" - at the Health Informatics Centre at the Ninewells campus of the
University of Dundee, discovering for himself the benefits of a facility that offers powerful new
tools for analysing the health of the nation and developing new areas of research and treatment.
The Health Informatics Centre (HIC) is a joint initiative between the University of Dundee, NHS
Tayside and NHS Scotland Information Services Division, housed in a purpose-built unit at
Ninewells. It has been up and running for two years and is involved in a wide range of research.
The focus of the work at HIC is using information to improve health, bringing together anonymised
data from a range of health projects and sources to create a major resource for the health
services.
Mr Kerr joined around 130 delegates - drawn from health professionals, policymakers and members of
the public - for today’s event, all of them being granted a detailed insight into the work carried
out at the centre.
Mr Kerr said: "We need the right information at our fingertips if we are to build on an NHS which better fits
the needs of our patients.
"By concentrating and analysing the wealth of data already available projects like the Health
Informatics Centre can help us develop new research so we can treat patients better."
HIC lets researchers analyse the data from hundreds of thousands of individual patients, allowing
them to track trends and patterns which had previously gone undetected. These can offer key
insights into how we can improve patient care.
Professor Peter Davey, Director of HIC, said: "HIC is founded on over 25 years of successful collaboration between the NHS and the University.
That early vision is now becoming a reality. The partnership is delivering quality improvement in
health services and faster translation of research results into health improvements. This
successful model is now being extended throughout Scotland through partnership with NHS Information
Systems Scotland."
All of the data held at HIC is available to researchers only in a purely anonymous form, meaning
that a person’s health data can be accessed, but with nothing to link it to that individual. The
value for researchers lies purely in the data, not in the identity of the person.
HIC provides three major benefits:
A single location where researchers can combine their resources and expertise to develop
new programmes of research that will improve health and healthcare delivery. A single location for record-linkage, encryption, management and data storage, improving
the efficiency of quality assurance and enhancing public understanding and trust. Greatly improved access for other researchers to allow the development of interdisciplinary
research programmes.
HIC holds a vast array of data covering the whole spectrum of healthcare, from dental research to
the large scale effectiveness of prescribed drugs.
Delegates attending today's event took part in workshops detailing the range of HIC's services.
These were themed into six different scenarios detailing how HIC links into the full range of
health care and advice.
NOTES TO EDITORS.
Health Informatics is the collection, evaluation, organisation and dissemination of information
about health. Health Informatics has the potential to revolutionise healthcare by improving both
research and the translation or research results into practice.
By Roddy Isles, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, r.isles@dundee.ac.uk | 
