Asthma Observatory Workshop

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 The goal of this major open innovation workshop is to collectively investigate approaches to and chart a roadmap for using the wealth of routine data now available across Scotland to drive forward major improvements in asthma outcomes. The Scottish Asthma Observatory will we hope support NHS care provision, policy making and increase our capability to undertake clinically important research with efficiency and at scale. 

The event is sponsored by Asthma UK Cdentre for Applied Research and The Farr Institute@Scotland, supported by discover Edinburgh Health Informatics.

Speakers include: Andrew Morris, Aziz Sheik, Hester Ward, Billy Malcom, Michael Bang, Hilary Pinnock, Liz Porterfield, Samantha Walker, Shahid Hanif, Graham Deveroux

Background

There is a growing need to set up Observatories that will allow real-time monitoring of the burden of disease outcomes over-time and across population parameters. Public Health England currently represents such a dynamic surveillance system implemented across all regions in England and providing real-time data on a number of disease outcomes (e.g. cancers), population health status (e.g. mental health, health inequality), and ongoing public health programmes (e.g. foetal anomaly and sickle cell screening programmes) to the public, government and scientists. A current aim of the AUKCAR is to establish a portal that will provide real-time data on the burden of asthma up to GP practice level in the whole UK, so providing an invaluable resource to support NHS care provision and enhance government policies on asthma. The portal is also aimed at providing researchers a resource that catalyses clinically important research in asthma and at scale.

We believe that a successful Asthma Observatory that will be relevant to patients, clinicians, policy-makers, the third sector, industry, and academia, requires an integrated approach of all stakeholders.

The planned Scottish Asthma Observatory Frontiers’ meeting is a bottom-up approach to progress efforts towards establishing a Scottish-wide Asthma Observatory. This would be a template for a UK- wide Asthma Observatory. The meeting involves asthma patients, clinicians, policy-makers, asthma charities, industry and academic researchers.

The overarching goal is to collectively brainstorm and discuss how we can chart a roadmap for using the wealth of routine data now available in Scotland to drive improvements in asthma outcomes through the building of a Scottish Asthma Observatory.

The core outcome expected from the meeting is that we will be able to formulate a clear road map in going forward, particularly to:

• Identify key areas of need/questions of interest/ opportunities to stakeholders that a Scottish Asthma Observatory could help provide answers/solutions to.

• Identify key opportunities and potential challenges for success, which can be carried out now and those which require additional development and funding.

• Collaboratively develop and submit an infrastructure grant for achieving the above aims through a Scottish Asthma Observatory.

• Establish across-the-board, on-going collaboration to achieve the above aims.