Dialogue App-powered QHSR project wins Intergovernmental Solutions Award

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Ben

Going one better than our previous nomination for a Citizen Service Award, the pioneering National Dialogues for the US Department of Homeland Security won an Intergovernmental Solutions Award this week.

The project was based on the Dialogue App platform (albeit a pretty souped-up and customised version), and we’re immensely proud to see the work recognised.  Massive props should go to our friends at NAPA who oversaw and ran the entire project, and to DHS for stepping out and using this open, online approach.

A bit more info about the Intergovernment Solutions Awards:

The 2010 theme for the annual Management of Change conference is 30 Years of Collaboration. We have expanded that concept for the ISA competition to incorporate the three priority areas addressed in the President’s Open Government Initiative – transparency, participation, and collaboration.

A panel of judges, including senior executives from government and industry, reviewed all nominations and selected the  finalists based on the following criteria.

1. Operational Eligibility

2. Executive Summary and Project Description

3. Intergovernmental and Collaborative

4. Transforming the Business and Improving the Operations of Government

5. Advancing Open Government

Win!

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QHSR National Dialogues nominated for citizen service award

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Ben

Last summer, we, in partnership with NAPA, worked on a series of three pioneering National Dialogues for the US Department of Homeland Security. Excitingly, this project has now been nominated for a Citizen Service Award.

The awards, which are hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration, recognise innovative citizen outreach efforts by government offices. The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review was an initiative by DHS to engage their huge audience of stakeholders and staff, as well as the general public, in providing input on their four year homeland security plan. As the entry to the Citizen Service Award says:

The National Dialogue on the QHSR was one of the largest, most complex stakeholder consultation efforts that the federal government has undertaken. Rather than set policy internally and implement it in a top-down fashion, DHS undertook the QHSR in a new and innovative way by engaging tens of thousands of stakeholders and soliciting their ideas and comments throughout the process.

Read the whole DHS QHSR entry on the Citizen Service Award blog.

There’s always pride to be had when a project you’ve been involved in is up for formal recognition – but just as exciting to me has been reading the user comments alongside the entry; things like:

It was truly a pleasure to participate in the “Dialogues on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review”. It was very helpful for us as citizens to be allowed to voice our opinions on the problems we see here in the trenches and provide input on focal points we believe should be addressed.

The format of posting ideas and allowing others to voice their opinions on those ideas was interactive and informative to both our government and its citizens.

In some ways, it’s so simple but it’s still always satisfying when projects work for the client and their end users and people looking for best practice. Hopefully, each one is also another step towards this kind of success story becoming the norm.

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MHRA Discussion site goes live

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Andy

MHRA’s medicines information discussion site goes live

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the government watchdog responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe, has commissioned an online discussion site asking the public whether key information about medicines should be available online.

The discussion site, aimed at health professionals and the public, asks whether making the MHRA’s definitive database of patient information leaflets (PILs) and Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs) available online is a good idea and, if so, what the site should look like.

Every medicine pack includes a PIL, which provides information on  using the medicine safely. PILs are based on the SPCs – a description of a medicinal product’s properties and the conditions attached to its use.

The MHRA is considering making this information accessible via the internet, so that members of the public can look up key information about medicines, such as ingredients and side effects. They would also like to know the benefits to the public and healthcare professionals of having an authoritative, up-to-date database available  at their fingertips.

Jan MacDonald, Acting Group Manager Information for Public Health, says ‘Timely access to up-to-date information about the medicines we are using is essential for safe and effective use.   We want to know what patients, the public and healthcare professionals want to know about medicines and how we can best deliver this’.

The discussion will run from 8th February to 8th March. The discussion site can be found at http://www.medinfodiscussion.org/.

For more information please contact

Susan Frade

Patient and Public Engagement Manager

Susan.frade@mhra.gsi.gov.uk

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Dialogue App makes debut at GSA webinar

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Ben

We were excited to have the opportunity to introduce the Dialogue App to a whole bunch of US government staff at a GSA webinar last night. It was slightly strange talking to an audience that you can’t see or hear but I think it went well. We set up a demo especially for the occasion – check it out at http://www.dialogue-app.com/gsa-demo

You can also take a look through our slideshow if you want:

A bit about the Dialogue App

Hopefully, it got people thinking about how they can use the internet to improve their decision-making/policy processes anyway :)

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