Ragnhild Hellesø and Paulina Sockolow first met in Taipei in 2014 at the 12th NI as presenters in the same paper presentation session. Dr. Hellesø is a Professor in Nursing Sciences at the Institute of Health and Sciences at the University of Oslo, Norway. She also has an appointment at the Centre for Care Research at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik, Norway. Paulina Sockolow is an Associate Professor of Informatics at the Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions and the College of Computing and Informatics in Philadelphia, PA, USA. When they met, they recognized they were doing research in same area (home care) and were interested in each other’s research.

Over subsequent NI meetings Drs. Hellesø and Sockolow learned about the context of each other’s research (i.e., country, ICT/HIT) and learned where they have common issues and challenges. They developed a workshop and a panel presentation for each subsequent NI meeting.

Their first submission was to the 13th International Congress, in 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. It was a workshop entitled, “Information Challenges in Patient Transition.” The aim of the workshop was to address challenges in access to accurate and relevant information for both patients and their clinicians during patient transitions to home care. Drs. Kathryn H. Bowles (Univ of Penn.) and Kavita Radhakrishnan (Univ Texas, Austin) rounded out the panel.

Their next submission was to the recently concluded 14th International Congress, in 2018, in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was a panel presentation entitled, “Digitalization of Patient Information Process from Hospital to Community (Home) Care Nurses: International Perspectives.” The panel discussed key issues related to the transfer of patient information from hospital to home care. Issues were presented in the context of differences in countries’ health care systems, characteristics of patients transferred from hospital to home care, as well as the characteristics of health information systems (ICT). Dr. Mirjam Ekstedt from Sweden was the third panel member. Drs. Hellesø and Sockolow have also participated in other international conferences on health informatics as a result of their collaboration.

Their collaboration has broadened each researcher’s perspective on the challenges of data communication during transition in care to home care. In addition, the collaboration has inspired the researchers to ask new research questions, and use new methods. Accordingly, at the close of the 14th International Congress, Drs. Hellesø and Sockolow began discussing their future collaboration.

NI is – according to Hellesø and Sockolow – “a golden opportunity” for building international and sustainable collaboration. They recommend nurses and health informaticians who are interested in nursing informatics to attend the next conferences hosted in Brisbane, Australia.