HSMA 4 Presentation Event – 28th September
We are delighted to invite you to the final presentation event for our 4th cohort of Health Service Modelling Associates on 28th September 09:00 – 13:30, delivered online via Zoom. The HSMA 4 project teams will present their work and the impact it has had for their organisations, as well as share their experiences of being on the programme.In October 2021, the PenCHORD team of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration for the South West Peninsula (PenARC) launched the fourth round of our highly successful Health Service Modelling Associates (HSMA) Programme – HSMA 4. In the programme, health, social care and policing staff are released from their usual role for a day a week to undertake a modelling or data science project that addresses an issue of importance for their organisation. They receive over 130 hours of training in a huge range of computer modelling and Data Science methods, and we teach HSMAs how to code in Python and R from first principles. They also receive 9 months of mentoring support from us as they apply their new skills to their project work, and generate real impact for their organisations and service users. Previous HSMA projects have led to £multi-million investments in mental health and urgent care services (https://arc-swp.nihr.ac.uk/news/torbay-hospital-mental-health-facility/), the establishment of brand new modelling and Data Science roles within NHS organisations (https://arc-swp.nihr.ac.uk/news/ground-breaking-role-for-operational-research-in-nhs-decision-making/), and support for the COVID-19 mass vaccination programme (https://arc-swp.nihr.ac.uk/news/hsma-covid-vaccination-model/).For HSMA 4, for the first time ever, we opened up applications for the programme nationally – available to anyone working in health, social care or policing anywhere in England. We received 300 registrations of interest, and took forward 80 HSMAs from 53 organisations across England. 18 projects were selected to be taken forward into Phase 2 of the programme, many of which representing cross-organisation and cross-sector collaborations nationally. These projects have been using modelling and data science approaches to tackle a wide variety of issues, including testing approaches to reduce the significant backlogs in health and social care, using AI to try to predict imminent violent incidents on mental health wards, using geographic modelling approaches to better understand firearms criminality and using machine learning to better understand which patients might be at risk of not attending to inform interventions to reduce inequalities.At the final presentation event, 16 of the HSMA 4 project teams will present their work. To reduce “Zoom fatigue”, presentations will be split into blocks of four 10 minute talks, with each block separated by 20 minute comfort breaks, during which attendees will also have an opportunity to chat directly with presenters in breakout rooms. The current itinerary for the event is attached.Please register for the event here. You will then be sent joining details in due course, but we recommend that you hold this date in your calendars in the meantime.This event will be of interest to anyone working in health, social care or policing organisations, academic staff with an interest in health, social care or policing research, as well as new and prospective HSMA applicants and HSMA alumni. We are able to accommodate a very large number of attendees, and so we would encourage you to spread word of this event amongst your colleagues and organisations.We hope that you are able to join us to hear about the fascinating and impactful modelling and data science work our HSMAs have been undertaking over the last year. If you have any queries about the event, please contact penchord@exeter.ac.uk.I look forward to seeing many of you in September.
Very best wishes,
Dr Daniel Chalk
Senior Research Fellow and HSMA Programme Lead
PenCHORD, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration for the South West Peninsula (PenARC)