Organisations
How SHOW works
The In the provision of health care at a national level, there are many organisations (as well as quasi-autonomous groups within organisations) offering information to those involved in the health care process. The amount of information involved is potentially vast. Monitoring and providing editorial oversight of these resources is a major task, and one which would be impossible to do as a centralised service. Politically too, it would be an undesirable approach since it would remove control from the originators of the material, with a concomitant effect on the quality of information provided.
The SHOW approach is to devolve and delegate control to the owners of sites themselves. This lets information providers retain ownership of (and responsibility for) the material the provide. Responsibility for the quality and management of information resources is left with those who have the greatest stake in it. Provider sites are responsible for the development and implementation of suitable editorial policies and the efforts of the SHOW team represent only a small proportion of the overall effort put in to providing Scotland's Health on the Web. This approach allows the central function provided by SHOW to focus on the co-ordination of sites, on the promotion of opportunities for convergence and on sharing of best practices and novel applications as they are developed within the service (or indeed within SHOW itself). Providing sites can concentrate on developing quality assured information resources that meet local needs.
The overall service operates as a federated structure with independent providers providing services that share common interface features, data structuring and the common goal of contributing to the health of the public.