New imperatives for health and medicine recordkeeping
Conference: 17 July 1997
At: Gryphon Gallery, Post Graduate House,
University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3052
The Centre for the Study of Health and Society at the University of Melbourne and the Australian Science Archives Project are planning a one day conference to discuss ethical, legal, research and technical aspects of the preservation of medical records and archives.
This is an exploratory meeting, which aims to bring together a wide range of participants from medical records administration, medical museums, hospital administration, state and federal health departments, archivists and major research funding organisations.
Issues to be explored will include:
Speakers
Warwick Anderson
Warwick Anderson lectures in the History and Philosophy of Science Department, University of Melbourne, and is the Acting Director for the Centre for the Study of Health and Society. After practising as a general practitioner for a number of years, Warwick completed a PhD in the history of medicine in the United States, and taught in the area for a number of years at Harvard.
Conference Program
8.30am
Registration
SESSION 1
9.00am
Warwick Anderson
Welcome
9.05am
Richard Larkins
Introduction
9.15am
Gavan McCarthy
Medical records: looking for long term solutions in an age of 'quick fixes'
9.45am
John Harley Warner
The Uses of Patient Records by Historians: Patterns, Possibilities, and Perplexities
10.15am
BREAK
SESSION 2
(Chair Warwick Anderson)
10.45am
Graham Giles
preserving records for research purposes
11.15am
John Snowden
legal aspects of records management
11.45am
Josephine Raw
Electronic Patient Records: Solving or Creating the Problem?
12.15pm
LUNCH
SESSION 3
(Chair Gavan McCarthy)
1.45pm
Bronwyn Hewitt, Robyn Weymouth
Current archival issues in Melbourne Hospitals
2.05pm
Doris Young
Medical records in clinical practice
2.25pm
Caroline Hannaway
Designing Medical Archive Programs in the United
States.
2.55pm
BREAK
3.15pm - 5pm
Caroline Hannaway (Historical Consultant to the National Institutes of Health); Teng Liaw (Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Melbourne); Janet McCalman (History, University of Melbourne); John Rasa (Box Hill Hospital); Josephine Raw (Royal Womens Hospital)
Panel discussion
History and Philosophy of Science Department, University of Melbourne
In this talk Dr Giles will draw from his experience of research using the medical records of cancer patients. In discussing specific projects as examples, he will illustrate the importance of retaining certain forms of medical records particularly in regard to the identification and validation of personal attributes and exposures (voluntary and iatrogenic), and linkage information that locates other pertinent source documents and archival materials including human tissue.
Dr Graham Giles has worked extensively in Cancer, Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology, and works with the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria. His current programs include a Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (Health 2000) prospective study of lifestyle (diet) in 42,000 Melbournians and migrants from Italy and Greece; a 4,000 man case-control study of the avoidable causes of prostate cancer; a case-control family study examining gene-environment interactions in the risk of prostate cancer; the development of databases to audit the genetic testing and management of families with multiple cases of cancers of the bowel, breast and prostate; and to coordinate and facilitate research on cancer genetics.
Caroline Hannaway
Historical Consultant to the National Institutes of Health
Designing Medical Archive Programs in the United States
Dr Hannaway will be speaking on the design, collecting approaches, and activities of several medical archive programs in the United States, using as examples the Johns Hopkins Medical School and Hospital, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland
Caroline Hannaway received her B.A. (Hons.) from the History and Philosophy
of Science Department at the University of Melbourne and her Ph.D. from the
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She edited the Bulletin of the
History of Medicine for eleven years while a member of the faculty of the
Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine and she was Director of
the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine of the College of
Physicians of Philadelphia. She is currently involved in a project to
document the response of the National Institutes of Health to the AIDS
epidemic.
This paper, which concentrates on administrative records, aims to report on issues confronting archivists and records managers in a sample of Victorian hospitals and the implication of these for efficient administrative practices. It is also hoped that any problems which may emerge as a result of this study will be brought to the attention of, and further investigated by those in a position to take action.
Robyn Waymouth and Bronwyn Hewitt are professional archivists employed by
the recently formed Women's and Children's Health Care Network. This
Network includes the Royal Women's and Royal Children's Hospitals where
they have been employed (respectively) for the past six years. Both
hospitals are large public institutions which date from the 19th century
and have in-house archives collections which include artefacts, films,
photos and ephemera as well as archival documents. Bronwyn is also the
archivist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (an ASAP project) and the
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.
Mr McCarthy will be giving a broad overview of issues to be looked at, including questions about sampling records; the potential impact of changes in hospital administration on record keeping practices; looking at importance of records other than clinical, and ones created outside institutional structures (eg the records created by GPs).
Gavan has been leading ASAP since its inception in
1985, a position that has consolidated an interest in the
history and archives of science, medicine and technology
in Australia, first stimulated through contact with records
in the area at the University of Melbourne Archives in the
late 1970s.
One of Gavan's major areas of interest has been the
development of computer database tools for handling
archival information and this this has led to the creation
of ASAP ADS - ASAP's Archival Data-management
System - which is a comprehensive set of data structures
and functions that can be used to handle the wide variety
of collections and projects that come under the work of
the ASAP.
In this talk prof. Warner will briefly sketch the remarkable growth of interest among historians during the past decade and a half in using patient records in exploring medical experiences and perceptions of the past, and will explain some of the historiographic forces that have informed this historical research activity. Drawing examples from studies that employ what are variously called clinical case histories, clincial charts, and patient notes, He will stress the variety of uses to which patient records are being put and how the historical questions being asked are shaped and constrained by the nature of the archival record that has been preserved. he will also emphasize the historian's reliance on other kinds of texts and images--including other archival medical records--in order to extract historical meaning from these documents.
John Harley Warner received his Ph.D. degree in the history of science from Harvard University in 1984 and, after two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, joined the faculty at Yale University, where he is now Professor of the History of Medicine and Science, based in the medical school, and Professor of American Studies. In addition to articles on the history of professional culture, clinical medicine, and ideals of science in medicine in the United States, Britain and France, his publications include THE THERAPEUTIC PERSPECTIVE: MEDICAL PRACTICE, KNOWLEDGE, AND IDENTITY IN AMERICA, 1820-1885 (Harvard University Press, 1986; paperback edition with new preface, Princeton University Press, 1997), and AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF SYSTEM: THE FRENCH IMPULSE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN MEDICINE (Princeton University Press, in press for fall 1997). With support of a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, he is starting an historical study of the clinical practice of writing, focusing on the epistemological, aesthetic, and moral choices involved in the transformation of the patient record in the United States.
For more information contact:
ASAPWeb: http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/
Lisa O'Sullivan
Australian Science Archives Project
203 Bouverie Street
Carlton VIC 3053
Australia
Tel: +61 3 9344 9287 Fax: +61 3 9349 4630
E-Mail: Lisa.O'Sullivan@asap.unimelb.edu.au