Category: Communication

Introducing our redesigned Faculty of Medicine Newsletter

March marks the launch of our redesigned Faculty of Medicine internal newsletter, which is now being delivered to the inboxes of postgraduate research student members of our community as well as all Faculty staff members. The monthly email has taken on a new style and design following an extensive redesign project.

We in the Faculty’s Communications Team wanted to provide an insight into the redesign project and how changes made to the newsletter were driven by your feedback.

Why change the newsletter?

Although the Faculty newsletter scored positively in the 2017 Staff Survey – 70 per cent of staff agreed or strongly agreed that it was a useful communication channel – we were keen to review a structure that had remained largely unchanged for around five years. With the Faculty newsletter a crucial component of our internal communications, we felt there was a clear need to freshen the design and ensure it evolved to fit the needs of our community.

The newsletter was also designed at a time when it was the main piece of medicine-specific internal communications; necessitating a broad and varied remit. Since then, the Faculty’s departments have developed their own newsletters, which now cover a significant proportion of the newsletter’s original scope. (more…)

Why media matters – what Imperial’s press office can do for you


If last year is anything to go by, 2018 is set to be packed with more ground-breaking research from the Faculty of Medicine.

But with all of the work put into securing funding, recruiting for trials, collecting data, lengthy analysis – let alone the back-and-forth of the peer-review process – it can be hard to find the time to publicise your work outside of your peers. However, it really is worth making that investment.

When the time is right, the College press office is here to help you get the word out about your research. The team includes former journalists and public relations experts with strong scientific backgrounds, a wealth of communications expertise, and most of all, an understanding of the news cycle and how the media works.

Beyond the initial recognition, publicising your research can bring other benefits, including leading to new speaking engagements as well as being able to show the impact of your work outside the lab or clinic when applying for funding. (more…)

Diverse@Imperial week: open call

Diverse@Imperial week is a week-long celebration of Imperial’s diverse community and the talent within it, taking place from 29 Jan – 2 Feb 2018.

During the week, there will be an exhibition in the South Kensington main entrance, showcasing stories from Imperial staff and students, and these stories will be shared online throughout the week as well.

The College Social Media team are doing an open call for staff and students to volunteer to be interviewed so we can write and share these stories. Interested staff/students should email socialmedia@imperial.ac.uk to find out more.

 

 

 

WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training update

Advanced Leadership Course in Dubrovnik, Croatia

CroatiaIn partnership with Zagreb Institute for the Culture of Health, WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training will be delivering the Advanced Leadership course in Dubrovnik, Croatia from 5-12 August 2017.

The course will be held in InterUniversity Centre, in the centre of Dubrovnik.

It is aimed at: Policy makers, health managers, heads of clinical and administrative departments, health professionals with an interest in management, and other interested stakeholders. It is an interactive training whereby participants are inspired but also challenged and allowed space for self reflection and development.
(more…)

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust moving to digital patient records

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

By the end of March 2016 Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust will be operating on digital patient health records and digital medications management using its Cerner IT system. This will be a big step towards the goal of paperless health records.

The approach has been piloted in gynaecology and elderly care at St Mary’s Hospital with good feedback from both staff and patients. It will now be rolled out site by site with St Mary’s complete by November, Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte’s by February, and Charing Cross and Western Eye by March 2016.

Experience from the pilots shows that classroom training is useful but people really learn a new IT system when they start using it in their working environment. Champions will have classroom training and other clinical staff will attend face-to-face demonstrations focusing on how the change will affect their work. They will then be supported at go-live by champions and floorwalkers.

For more information, contact Paul Harrison, Cerner Communications Manager.

Central ‘Faculty of Medicine’ webpages – looking a little bit different!

webpageAs you may well have noticed by now, the central ‘Faculty of Medicine’ website has moved into Imperial College’s new website content management system (CMS). These pages (the majority of pages under www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine)  have been migrated and refreshed to match the College’s new look and to deliver a better user experience for visitors to the site – no matter what device they may be using: mobile, tablet or desktop computer. To prepare for this transfer a team of editors in the Faculty have worked hard to review and recreate their existing pages into the new format, and we’d like to thank them for all their hard work.

This is the first phase of a programme of transfer for the many sites which are related to the Faculty of Medicine.  Sites will need to be moved from our current Faculty system (an older, CMS which is unique to our Faculty) into the College’s new, mobile-friendly system.  For more detail about future transfers, please see the ‘what’s next?’ section below.

What to expect from the new pages.

Now the new pages have gone live you’ll notice that existing urls and links to central Faculty information held on these pages have changed.  We’ve worked to keep a number of our most important url links going to their direct equivalent – but with such a large website move, it’s inevitable that some existing links to pages may no longer work as you expected. If the old link you are used to using has changed, you’ll either be redirected to the appropriate general area of the new site, or be taken to a ‘404’ page which will attempt to locate a relevant page in the new site.  Alternatively you can use the College search box which appears at the top of every web page.

We want your feedback.

We are very interested to hear your experiences of using the new site as you get to know it during the first few months after launch.  In particular we’d very much value your opinion of the new ‘For FoM staff’ section (we aim to continually improve this as a resource to complement the College level pages – and need your input to do that!).

What’s next?

The next stage of the project will be to rollout a programme of activity to work with site owners to help them migrate content from their departmental, unit or research group pages into the new system and designs. This activity will take a year to complete, and will be undertaken as a phased roll-out which will be planned with each of the Departments.  If you are a Faculty CMS site owner we will therefore be contacting you over the coming months to discuss your training needs and help you plan the transfer of your pages into the new system.


For more information about the College-wide web project, please visit:
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/tools-and-reference/web-guide/projects/web-redesign/

For information on how to prepare your web pages for the new system please visit: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/tools-and-reference/web-guide/projects/web-redesign/guidance/


Desmond Samuel

Digital Communications and Marketing Strategy Manager
Faculty of Medicine

 

The School of Medicine Mobile Medical Education Pilot Project

The School issued iPads Mini to students in years 5 and 6 of the MBBS course at the beginning of the 2013/14 academic term.

iPad_newsletter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The key implementations introduced as part of the pilot have focused on the following areas:

iBooks

iBooks have been developed in order to standardise the delivery of course related materials for the different clinical attachments. Once the iBooks are downloaded on the iPads, they can be accessed offline. The iBooks offer a range of interactions designed by academics to make the learning experience more engaging for students. The image below shows some of the iBooks developed for years 5 and 6.

iPad_books_images_cropped

Students can download the iBooks via the Mobile Device Management System (MDM): AirWatch Secure Content Locker provided by ICT.

Overall, the feedback received from academics and students has been very positive. They like the fact the iBooks can be accessed off-line and they provide a lot of engaging interactions.

The iBooks developed can be accessed via the iPad Project Organisation in Blackboard: http://bit.ly/1rlBKXF

Electronic submissions and signoffs

iPad_lectureElectronic submissions and signoffs have been piloted using the eForms iPad App. It allows submissions of assessments (end of attachment, DOPS, etc.) via student iPads.  The system allows clinicians to electronically sign forms online/offline and to receive an electronic copy of the submissions via email. Students also receive confirmation via email and administrators can track submissions online.

SharePoint has also been piloted for electronic submissions in years 3, 5 and 6 to accommodate open-ended questions requiring formatting as well as submitting attachments (PDF, Word documents, etc.).

In total, over 100 electronic submissions have been introduced in years 5 & 6. Feedback so far has been positive although some students have expressed preference for paper based submissions.

iCalendars

iCalendars have also been deployed for some clinical attachments (nearly 100 iCalendars), allowing students to access their calendars/timetables on their iPads and/or smartphones. Due to the positive feedback received from students on the use of iCalendars, the School has decided to implement iCalendars for all clinical attachments from January 2015.

Other Apps

We have also received positive feedback on the use of virtual clickers especially during the Pathology course. The students have also been very receptive to the use of the BMJ Best Practice App provided by the library.

The work done so far on the Mobile Medical Education Pilot Project provides evidence of the benefits in the provision of electronic submissions, iCalendars and the distribution of course and learning related materials on the students’ devices via iBooks. The digitisation of clinical related assessments (e-forms) provides a more efficient and robust mechanism to audit assessment submissions during attachments.

A Working Group will be setup to evaluate the iPad pilot and make recommendations to the School on the way forward in relation to the School’s Mobile Learning Strategy. The recommendations will be made available by February 2015.

A CPD course: ‘Creating Mobile Medical Education: Successful Implementation in Practice’ has been setup based on the experience gained during this project at the School. All the implementations carried out as part of this project will be demonstrated during the course.

Guest speakers from Manchester and Leeds Medical Schools will also present their latest developments on Mobile Medical Education. For further information about the course please visit: http://bit.ly/1AR24tQ

For further information contact us at: elearning.medicine@imperial.ac.uk

iPad_last_image

Dr Maria Toro-Troconis
E-Learning Strategy and Development Manager
Faculty of Medicine

Symplectic Elements – common questions answered

You should review the Symplectic Elements website guides http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/symplectic/userguide

We have answered some of the most frequently asked questions received within the Faculty of Medicine:

Symplectic is not retrieving my publications – Review your search settings

If the automated search performed by Symplectic elements is not retrieving your publications, there are a few things you can do to address this.

The more criteria you include in your search settings, the more restrictive the search becomes. Therefore you should tweak your settings by:

  • Removing addresses – it is likely that you will only be publishing under “Imperial College London”. Therefore, having “Imperial” will be enough – anything else is not needed and should be removed.
    • If you have published at another institute, and would like these included in your Publications listing, then you can include these as well. It is recommended that you use very specific address information exactly as they appear on your publications. For example “Oxford” would be sufficient to pick up items published at “University of Oxford”

address

  • Ensure your name variants appear EXACTLY the same as the name under which you publish

names

  • Reduce the number of keywords to broaden the search (having too many keywords will further restrict the search)

Adding a publication via the ID number

This will force Symplectic Elements to retrieve a specific publication.

  • Within the search settings, scroll to the bottom of the page
  • Enter the ID number (for example, Publications on PubMed show this as “PMID”)
  • Press the + button
  • Press Save

id

When the next scheduled search takes place, it will retrieve that publication.

My publications are not appearing in the correct order on my PWP

  • Within Symplectic Elements, go to “Account Settings” in the top right of the screen
  • In the section “Update Sort for External Systems” choose an order for the desired category. For example, if your publications are not appearing in the right order, choose an order for “Publication” such as “Date (descending)” and then click “Update”

account

  • THEN go to your PWP, login and click on the “Administration” tab.
  • In the section “Symplectic Elements” press the circular arrow icon. This will force Symplectic to update the information on your page based on the sort order you have chosen in Symplectic.

symplecticrefresh

I get an error message when I try to accept or decline publications

In our experience this can be fixed by clearing the Cache in your browser, closing it down completely and then trying again.

To find out how to clear the cahce in your browser, please visit http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser%27s-Cache

14 Faculty of Medicine Master’s Scholarships available

The Faculty of Medicine is offering generous scholarships to students with outstanding academic potential who apply in 2014 for one of the 30 Master’s courses run by its Schools, Institutes and Departments.

There are 4 Dean’s Master’s Scholarships available (full fees plus £17.5K flexible stipend), 2 for Home/EU and 2 for Overseas students, and 10 Faculty Master’s Scholarships (£17.5K flexible stipend), open to both Home/EU and overseas students.  Application is via an online form and the deadline is 31 March 2014.

Please advertise these widely to attract the best students to our courses. Posters such as those below (plus more styles) are available for download.  These can be printed for display in your location and/or sent via e-mail to prospective applicants or contacts in other universities (and overseas) who would be willing to circulate the information to their life science/medicine undergraduates.

If you have any queries about the Scholarships or Master’s courses, please contact Jim Osborne

posters

 

New Faculty of Medicine website

After a few exceptionally busy months, we relaunched our Faculty webpages on Friday 17 January 2014.

The new website has been in development for a while to showcase the work of the Faculty within our main research themes. In order to do this, research landing pages have been developed and the old and out of date material removed.

Our research on film

A large and exciting part of the project was to produce a high quality video for each ‘research landing page’ to more easily communicate what the Faculty is doing in each main area of research. Whilst the filming was completed in late-October (thank you to all that were involved!), the editing process took a bit longer than had been anticipated – trying to cut down the footage filmed in half in order to fit into the time allocated for each video was tricky.

We produced 13 videos in total: 11 for the research themes, another to give an overview of our research and one to better communicate how, through the AHSC and NIHR Imperial BRC, the Faculty translates its research.

Other objectives for the website were to:

  • Improve the homepage:
    • making it easier to navigate to key content
    • better promote news, social media activity and other content
    • increase awareness of the Academic Health Science centre and our other strategic initiatives
  • Improve the way we are communicating research across the Faculty:
    • Creating a much improved “Our research” landing page
    • Better communication of the AHSC, NIHR Imperial BRC and other strategic partnerships and initiatives
  • Review, reduce and re-prioritise content:
    • Changing our main navigation
    • Culling old, out of date and unused content
  • Audience focussed architecture:
    • Re-purposing “teaching” into “Prospective students” giving a better overview of our courses / education and in particular our Master’s degrees
    • Better information / signposting for Staff
    • Better content for the “about us” section
  • Preparation for the College website re-design / CMS project:
    • Details below

College website re-design project

With the new College website design and content management system (CMS) on the horizon, we have taken the opportunity to review content, and where necessary, cull out of date, old and redundant pages. This will make transferring to the new design and CMS a much easier, and less time consuming, process.

By using Google Analytics data (and information on when pages were last edited), we reviewed page views etc to decide what content was clearly not being visited and where content was extremely old, removing it from the website.

There is still work to be done to further improve the website and we are looking forward to getting to grips with a new content management system and college website design in the coming months.

We’ll be in touch with website editors and owners in the coming months to discuss and plan how the wider faculty website transfer process is to happen.

If you have any comments or questions, please use the comments section below.

James and Al
Digital Communications Team, Faculty of Medicine

ICT Communications update

mobilEcho – Access Files on the Move

 

Our ICT department has introduced an app, called mobilEcho, that allows staff and students to connect securely to their ‘home’ directory (H drive) and SharePoint using mobile devices such as phones and tablets, both on and off campus. The software is free to use, and supported on both Android and Apple devices.

Find out more about MobilEcho. Queries can be directed to Michael Lynn by email.

Improving wireless access across NHS sites

 

For academics, wireless eduroam access has now been expanded to cover all five main NHS Trust Hospital sites. The roaming service allows staff from participating institutions to use their ‘.ac.uk’ email addresses to gain wireless access to the Imperial College network, and to networks at other participating institution’s sites. For more details on eduroam see http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/ict/services/networks/roaming

A new wireless system (ICHT-Green) is also now available (from 30th September) offering excellent coverage across Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital buildings for all staff using Trust-owned, Windows-based laptops (not tablets or mobile phones).

This work is part of the Trust’s commitment to support and enhance the experiences of Imperial College and other academics across all Hospital sites.

Laura Gates
ICT Communications Manager
Imperial College London

Update from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health

Staff satisfaction at hospitals may affect the quality of patient care

The satisfaction levels among a hospital’s staff are closely linked to the quality of healthcare it provides, say a team of doctors from Imperial. In the first study of its kind, Dr Richard Pinder (School of Public Health) and colleagues found that hospitals in England with lower mortality rates were more likely to have members of staff satisfied with the quality of care they provide.  The findings suggest that staff satisfaction could be used as an early warning system to help spot more serious institutional failings, reported The Daily Telegraph. “If you want to choose between two hospitals, knowing that 98 per cent of doctors and nurses working there would recommend their hospital, compared with 60 per cent elsewhere is a useful thing to know,” said Dr Pinder.

Collaboration between ICHT and PCPH

Mark Davies (Chief Executive), Brendan Farmer (Director of Strategy) and Chris Harrison (Deputy Medical Director)

On 10 April, Academic GPs from the Department of Primary Care & Public Health met with senior staff from the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT), including Mark Davies (Chief Executive), Brendan Farmer (Director of Strategy) and Chris Harrison (Deputy Medical Director).

The aim of the meeting was to discuss closer working between the department and ICHT in areas such as primary care service redevelopment, specialist GP training, continuing professional development for established GPs in NW London, GP liaison, and primary care research.

Prepared by Jenna Mollaney, Department of Primary Care and Public Health

Faculty of Medicine Communications Survey update

We received over 700 responses to the Faculty Communications survey – thank you to all of those that responded! Your contribution is very much appreciated.

Winners

Richard Colquhoun (Neonatal Data Analysis Unit Manager, Department of Medicine) and Jocelyn Elmes (Research Assistant, School of Public Health) were each a recipient of a £50 amazon voucher.

What next?

Survey resultsThe data from the survey is being analysed – we will be working to identify some key activities to improve communication across the Faculty and in particular improve communication across the campuses which appeared to be a concern for a lot of those that responded. It also appears that information flows across all areas in the Faculty aren’t ideal at present so again, we will be looking at what could be done to improve this.

If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, please post a comment below, contact James Moore or Neil Young. We’d be really interested in hearing anything you have to share.

We’ll be providing a summary of the results in the coming weeks.

Insta-help

Here are a few links to information which appeared to be a common bug-bear amongst a number of people that completed the survey: