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Dear SCATA Member
I hope you've been enjoying the summer wherever you are. A few items to put on your radar as we go into the Autumn.
Our sister organisation in the US, the STA are looking for a SCATA member to speak at their annual meeting in Miami on 10-13 January 2018. SCATA has a reciprocal speaker reimbursement policy agreed with the STA that comprises free meeting registration, 1 night (possibly 2 at discretion of session chair) in the meeting hotel and up to $500 for return economy class air travel - the actual amount in sterling varies depending on the current exchange rate.
The theme is innovation and application of new technology in clinical care, with a wide remit including devices, monitoring and technology in general. If you are interested in applying, can you please let me know by the 9th September, and if you can include an outline of your topic that would be great. In the event of more than one application, it will be the SCATA committee's decision on whom to put forward.

Our ASM in Glasgow in May was a successful meeting although attendance was down significantly on Birmingham 2016. We are hoping to learn some lessons and improve for next time. On that subject, our ASM in 2018 will be in Cardiff. The decision on venue is at an advanced stage and we expect to have a date and draft programme out by early September. If you'd liked to be involved, either as a speaker, present a free paper, or contribute as an industry partner, please let us know using the [email protected] email address.

I've made a start on uploading some of the presentations from Glasgow but this is a lengthy task and will take time to complete so thanks for your patience.

Our next event is #GasHack2017 21-22nd October. I'll post an update via JP Lomas in the next few weeks but if you have a pitch or an idea (or know someone else who has) then please register via the web site as early as possible. The event will be free to attend.

SCATA has two pieces of work ongoing that I'm looking for some assistance with (unpaid unfortunately) - the first is the SCATA Trade Database. We are in dire need of an up to date list of trade partners that we can involve in our various bits of work. If you login to the SCATA member's area, you'll see our very out of date list. If you have a relationship with a trade partner in your organisation, I'd appreciate if you can take a moment to check (a) are they are listed and (b) are the details are up to date. Our Industry Liaison Officer (Charlotte Small) has been coordinating some of this work but as you can imagine, it's time-consuming so the more SCATA members that can contribute, the better.

The other piece of work that is not live on the site yet is related to the Digital Maturity Assessment currently used by NHS England. As indicated at the ASM in Glasgow, I would like SCATA to compile (and own) a similar assessment based on systems used in Peri-Operative Medicine. Examples would be surgical pre-assessment, digital anaesthesia and surgical care records, pain management etc. Now that the holidays are over, I have no excuse for not getting this live on the SCATA Member's Area so I will let you know when it's ready to go.

Finally, I am hoping to resurrect what used to be known as the SCATA XML Standards Working Group. The new group will have a wider remit and include open standards such as FHIR and OpenEHR. I have a few trade partners interested in working with us and I plan to use the February Working Group meeting at the AAGBI in London for a one-day meeting. Date and Agenda to follow.

If you have any questions, please ask.

Regards,
Dr J Grant Forrest
Chairman and Webmaster

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