Standing Out from the Crowd

One Amongst Many

I took the train to Leiden this morning for today's workshop at the University Teaching Hospital. We're going to collaborate with the people there to build a system to help with the detection and control of hospital infections. It's becoming an ever more serious problem at hospitals throughout the world as microorganisms develop resistance against our existing antibiotics and new ones become increasingly hard to develop . We've long known that our core health protection software has the capability of being adapted for use within this environment, but the stumbling block has always been the integration with existing systems, which in the UK is often more a political issue than a technical one. With the people here there is a real will to drive this project through any such obstacles.

The first part is relatively easy, which is the early detection of patients infected with an organism exhibiting the same pattern of antibiotic resistance. From there the intention is to suck data out of a multiplicity of databases to trace the relevant patient journeys through the hospital, in terms of physical movement, the surgical procedures carried out, and the personnel with whom they've had contact. The aim will be to detect common elements which will hopefully point to the source of the infection. Early detection is the key, to prevent the spread as quickly as possible.

I may be struggling these days with the detailed work of writing software but I think I'm still pretty good at the vision thing! There was a lot of input today from a range of people from different disciplines, but out of the early chaos, as the day went on, I could see a solution taking shape in my head. I've left the meeting with a fairly clear idea of what the software needs to do and what it will look like. This was the main outcome I wanted from the day so it's been a success.

I'm writing this offline at Schiphol Airport waiting for my flight back to Leeds. Today's blip was taken outside the railway station at Utrecht, and it was a hard choice to make over this almost blip here. It needs to be seen large to appreciate the size of the bike park, which is more apparent in the alternative shot. There are literally thousands of bikes sitting here, and I've been wondering today how many have just been abandoned! The bike lanes contained a continuous procession of cyclists this morning - to the extent that it was quite hard to find a gap in which to cross. I've also been wondering what the accident statistics are like?

This is a totally different bike culture to that back home in England. It thrives because of the flat nature of the terrain, which means that these rather heavy and old fashioned looking bicycles are easy to ride and completely cool. On my local hilly terrain these bikes would not just be hard work, but distinctly uncool. Whereas the people riding on these in Utrecht this morning looked totally the part, especially (I have to admit!) the young women, I think I would feel very self-conscious, all to do with that strong self-image thing again. Perhaps I'd dispense with the lycra if I lived here!