SCATA - UK Society for Computing and Technology in Anaesthesia

SCATA Members Newsletter May 2022

Dear SCATA Member

We learned in late March 2022 that Dr Alastair Lack, founding member of SCATA, had died aged 79.

Both the Times and the Salisbury Journal published obituaries this month.

SCATA's first Chairman, he led the newly-founded society from 1987 until 1992 when he handed the reins over to Gavin Kenny. In 1996 he was appointed President, serving the society in that role for five years. He was subsequently nominated for lifelong Honorary Membership, in recognition of his major contribution to the ongoing work of the society.

In 2007, Alastair co-organised SCATA's 20th anniversary meeting in London. It was a joint meeting with ESCTAIC, our European sister society. He later published a memoir of the early days of SCATA and ESCTAIC.

As recently as June last year (2021), he attended our virtual AMM on Zoom, curious to know how the specialist society and medical charity that he co-founded was faring in these modern times.

Some 35 years after he co-founded SCATA, he will be remembered as a lively enthusiast for all things technical in our specialty.

If you'd like to share any memories of Alastair, please send them to me using the contact form, or reply to this email and I'll post as comments on the blog, thank you.

New Committee Appointments

Pleased to welcome Francois Taljard (@G4sD0c) as SCATA's new Industry Liaison Officer. Our relationships with trade partners in the UK and beyond have been incredibly productive over the years and we look forward to renewing these ties at future annual meetings.

Also pleased to welcome James Selby as our newest trainee subcommittee member. James is an ST6 based in London.

We have three vacancies for Ordinary Members on the committee and a further two for Trainee Subcommittee members from May 2022. Committee roles do not carry any requirement for meeting attendance or other 'fixed' SCATA duties but are simply a conduit for members to become more involved in the activities of the Society more generally.

DAS Difficult Airway Database

Earlier in April, SCATA member Sajay Achuthan got in touch with regard to a DAS project that he's been involved with closely. Sajay, JP, Grant, Francois and Karthikeyan Ponnusamy (DAS application developer) met on zoom on the 24th April to discuss how SCATA can assist and contribute to the project. The national project overseen by the DAS is to keep an anonymised and encrypted central database of patients with difficult airways. This can only be accessed by a GMC registered healthcare practitioner upon the submission of details that are provided by the patient to them each time. More information on the project is availabe here. In addition to comments on technical issues and data privacy, we discussed whether the project could be extended to a prototype national disease registry for patients with conditions of significance for perioperative care more generallly.

Devices on FHIR - Alerting

As regular attenders of the HL7 DevicesOnFHIR working group, Grant and Martin Hurrell are involved in a piece of work to define FHIR resources to capture and structure alerts from point of care devices. After a lengthy period of discussion and extensive in-depth analysis of what constitutes an 'alert', the project is moving forward with the prospect of an extension to the FHIR device resource and accompanying implementation guide.

Annual Scientific Meeting

Grant investigated the possibility of holding the 2022 ASM at the Manchester Museum of Science & Industry, the venue chosen for the 2019 ASM. Unfortunately the room hire costs for this venue have escalated significantly, as is the case for many venues. On balance, given the tight timescales and pressures on study leave, it was agreed that the ASM be pushed back to October. The Annual Members Meeting will go ahead on zoom as planned - the date will be announced shortly.

In the meantime, stay safe and see you in June.

JP Lomas (@jplomas)
Chairman

Grant Forrest (@digitalgasdoc)
President

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