It is not often that I see the need to support Roy Lilley’s views but his article “An old soldier” of the 12 December 2011 on ‘public health’ is really an issue we should be picking up as it didn’t go far enough. I bet you never thought you’d ever see the day when that was said!
In the article Roy quotes Charles-Edward Amory Wilson’s definition of Public Health from 1877. It is, he states: “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organised efforts and informed choices of society, organisations, public and private, communities and individuals”.
The fact Roy had to go back to 1877 is telling. As well as all the issues Roy raised there is another big issue: Public Health has to become current. Whilst epidemiology as a science is hard to criticise the output from the process isn’t. Flogging data to Commissioners to help them make their investment decisions that is two years old, no matter how accurate it is, is of less value than providing real-time data if you want to maximise impact on outcomes and change future behaviour. It is nice to have but doesn’t and shouldn’t influence decision-making when more current intelligence is available through integrated health informatics sources.
Last weeks debate on the ‘big data’ sets required by pharmaceutical organisations necessary to maximise the return on their investment decisions isn’t just needed in regards to this industry. The whole system needs to think about how it frees up data from its informatic technologies too in order to commission more intelligently.
In the New Year the Centre for Better Managed Health and Social Care will initiate another seminar debate to pick up on this issue. If you’re interested please join us or send us your thoughts so we can send them on to the Future Forum in a paper we will produce.
Dean Fathers 