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Looking beyond job titles in the world of data, digital and clinical informatics

by Lauren Hoodless
written by Lauren Hoodless

Job DescriptionIt’s hard not to notice the emergence and flurry of job titles (CCIO, CNIO, CAHPIO, CPIO, CMIO, CXIO, CDIO, CIO, CSIO and CHCIO) under the umbrella of data, digital and clinical informatics in the last few years.

While CIO, CNIO and CCIO job titles have been the front runners for a few years in the data, digital and informatics world, the variety of roles is expanding rapidly, and it is vital that we keep up. More importantly we must ensure job titles are a true reflection of the skills, knowledge, expertise and experience required to meet the demands, provision and delivery of health and care required across systems and for the 21st century.

Informaticians often ask for advice on how to further their careers from others in the industry and the myriad of titles no doubt makes this for an interesting conversation.

With the UK looking to have an additional 32000 jobs in informatics, there could be an argument for the necessity of titles.

Is there a right or wrong path? How many more “C” job titles are envisaged over the next 5-10 years?

Where is the evidence to support the accelerated growth?

Is it time to have a joined-up conversation and review on professionalisation of roles?

Tailored job descriptions

Kaur, who is co-vice chair of the CCIO Digital Health Advisory Panel and the only non CCIO and pharmacy representative, points to the fact that midwives and allied health professionals (AHP) are badged under CNIO job adverts, with the advertisement itself often having a heavy focus on nursing with little or no information related to the other groups.

Also, where do pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, biomedical scientists, ODPs and others who fall into a traditional or non-traditional support services category fit? Job descriptions aren’t always tailored to cater for these groups. Where are the career pathways outlined for different staff to successfully obtain digital roles with clear training pathways to achieve their goals and have the required skillset to flourish in their posts?

Kaur  is an aspiring CCIO who has been involved in the development of the exemplar CCIO JD by the Faculty of Clinical Informatics published in autumn 2021 and has spoken recently at Digital Health Rewired on the Office of the CCIO panel.

Kaur challenges digital health leaders to dispel the myth that only doctors, and nurses can take CCIO and CNIO roles. We need to champion each other and truly recognise that the voice of data, digital and clinical informatics is fundamental, and these roles can be led by a variety of individuals from different healthcare disciplines. Kaur  is an advocate for embedding digital and clinical informatics learning and development from the grass roots at undergraduate level where possible but also not stifling anyone in achieving their dreams to become digital leaders no matter their current career position.

She  firmly believes that teams are richer as a multi-disciplinary network and barriers to current success within the data, digital and clinical informatics field includes the ever-growing number of titles, non-inclusive job descriptions and advertisements and disparity of pay. These need to be addressed and society needs to work collaboratively to bring professionals together from clinical, non-clinical, technical, non-technical and operational fields to enable technology to deliver excellent person-centred care.

Time for a review?

It’s a similar picture for Adejolu, a respected Systems leader and National Associate CNIO, who believes it is time to critically review digital and informatics job titles used across the NHS.

She says, she is often inundated with questions from nurses and midwives interested in digital and informatics asking how many digital courses or programmes they need to undergo before becoming a CCIO, CIO, CIM, CAHPIO or CNIO? How long would it take to get there or for those who already have credible systems experience, they worry if their current career portfolio, work history is extensive or sufficient enough to command such a job title like this now and in the future

“The truth is, there is no straight-forward answer, this is often a mixed bag, you have those who have had structured career pathway, building, and developing diverse system-wide competencies and capabilities along the way, those who have worked their way up, those who may have completed a digital programmes or course, in some cases, this may have proved instrumental in paving a way to becoming a CCIO a CIO, those who  say “my boss thinks I will be good for this” and those who say they just fell into the role etc,” she says.

Adejolu believes it’s time to push the “pause button” on the creation of any more digital and informatics job titles and move away from what now seems like an elite, exclusive and hierarchy of more digital and informatics job titles which only seems to alienate and diminish real opportunities for experienced and skilled professionals across systems. Our focus must be on broader skills development, transforming the workforce, distributed leadership and partnership working so everyone is fully supported to excel, thrive, succeed, bring their best self, work to high standards to deliver the safest digital/informatics transformation and the best possible and safer care for our patients and the population.

Data, digital assisted technologies and informatics is truly an exciting place to be, she adds, but job titles need an urgent review, a structured, unified core competency framework and leadership that truly inspires and encourages innovation, creativity, skills development, without the added burden, pressure or fixation on obtaining job titles as a replacement for skills, knowledge, experience, of real system change.

“As we transition into the world of Integrated Care Systems, working in partnership with Integrated Care Boards, we need to painstakingly stocktake and baseline what we currently have vs what we need across systems, standardise job titles and job descriptions, establish continuous talent and skills development pipelines, encourage diverse talents across systems, increase workplace jobs and opportunities, promote an inclusive and broader learning and development portfolio for ALL clinical professions and champion a culture of innovative geniuses through collaboration, where creativity is the norm and less about job titles,” Adejolu concludes.

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CNIO HandbookFeaturedNews

CNIO Handbook Chapter 2

by Michele
written by Michele

Introducing the CNIO role

The chief nursing information officer role is usually broad but, at its heart, it is about bridging the gap between technology and clinical practice. CNIOs should have a seat at the table when the clinical technology strategy is being set, and then through the procurement, planning and implementation stage of any new system. As CNIOs, we ensure the focus is on using technology to improve outcomes for patients and citizens.

What’s it like starting out in a CNIO role?

If you’re starting out in a CNIO role, you may be replacing an existing postholder or it may be an entirely new post for the organisation. You may also be a lone digital nurse, or you may be part of a team. It may be your first senior nursing role, which you’ve gained through previous digital experience, or you may already be a senior nurse and new to digital. These experiences are all slightly different.

When you’re the first

Being the first CNIO for an organisation can feel like a daunting prospect. It’s important to remember the positive aspects: that you have a fabulous opportunity to develop the role and to bring others along with you.

You will be able to set the agenda and direction, but it’s likely others will try and point you towards meeting existing agendas. Instead, give yourself some time to decide what you want the priorities to be – and agree with your senior colleagues that this is the approach you’ll be taking. You will have a more positive impact in the longer term, as well as getting personal satisfaction and a feeling that you are personally developing too.

If you’re going solo

If you’re the only digital clinical leader in your organisation, then the job can feel like a lonely one and really quite different to what most of us are used to as nurses.

The key thing to do in this situation is to form networks. In your own organisation, it’s helpful to connect to other senior nurses. A good way to do this is by joining existing nursing collaboration groups (these will have different formats in different organisations). Although these colleagues will have different specialisms and interests, they too will have a focus on nursing strategy and workforce development.

If you are not directly reporting to your chief nurse/director of nursing, make sure that you meet with him or her in the early weeks in post and continue updating on progress. The digital nursing agenda should now be a key part of every chief nurse/director of nursing’s portfolio, and he or she will be relying on you to help drive it forward.

Outside your organisation, there are plenty of opportunities to connect with fellow digital nurses. This includes via the Digital Health CNIO Network and via regional and sector-specific groups. There are also the likes of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics’ nursing professional interest group, the BCS (Chartered Institute for IT) nursing specialist group, and the Royal College of Nursing eHealth forum.

If you’re joining a pre-existing team

If you are lucky enough to be joining an existing team, this is likely to be multi-professional. That means it’s important to link with clinical and non-clinical colleagues to determine who will lead on which aspects of the digital strategy. You don’t want to step on each other’s toes, but it’s really important to make sure that all the clinical professions feel that their views are being heard. That means you may also be the identified lead for allied health professionals or other professional groups.

Who leads on what is likely to be based on individual interests and experience, but together the team will need to have input on areas such as research, clinical governance, digital clinical safety and patient/citizen involvement.

An important first step is to understand what has already been done – ask your colleagues to run you through progress over the past couple of years. Focus on what has gone well, but don’t forget to ask about the lessons learned so that you can make improvements in future. Quality improvement is a key aspect of the CNIO role, and it needs to start early and continue always. You will then be able to gain a clear idea of what needs to be done in future, and will increase your understanding around stakeholder relationships (including with system suppliers), transformation and change activity within digital and across the wider organisation, and how involved your nursing colleagues already are in the digital agenda.

Be careful with how much you take on

It’s hard to say no to things when you are new in post, but it’s important not to take on too much – the danger is you won’t be able to deliver, and that’s really demoralising.

Be especially cautious of taking on work which could or should be done by others. Although it’s tempting to ‘fix’ problems (especially for most nurses), you will get overloaded. The digital nursing agenda will be your key one, but it’s important to recognise that you will also want to get involved in things which improve your knowledge and/or pique your interest. It is important to leave time to be able to do those things too, and if you’ve taken on too much work you won’t have time to do so.

Remember there’s no one best way to be a CNIO

As you start out as a CNIO, remember there is not one best way to do the role. It will depend on your own background and how much leadership or digital experience you already have.

Remember too that while some of the digital aspects of what you are doing might be new for you, you have lots of existing and transferable skills from your previous experience – and that’s true whatever previous experience you have.

If you are coming into the role as an existing senior nurse with limited digital knowledge, make friends with colleagues in the IT/digital team. They will be keen to share their knowledge and experience with you, and it’s a really good way to learn the ‘language’ of digital healthcare.

If this is your first post at this level but you have previous digital experience, then the relationships you will likely need to work on are those with other senior nurses and clinicians. This can feel difficult if you haven’t done it before, but also because you are likely to be the one who has most digital knowledge. You’ll need to be prepared to teach, and to encourage others’ understanding and interest in digital, while developing these key peer relationships.

What skills do I need to flourish as a CNIO?

There are a number of key skills that I think you will need to succeed as a CNIO. Some you’ll have already, but all you’ll need to work on and develop.

  • Teamwork. You need to work as part of the team, to collaborate with and motivate others.
  • An authentic, credible style and a passion for improving clinical outcomes by using technology. This will often get you moving forwards even when times are most tough. It’s important to have resilience and tenacity, as well as a pragmatic but can-do attitude.
  • A knowledge of your own limits. You need to know the boundaries of your own abilities, and to be able to ask for help.
  • An ability to make decisions. You’ll need to be able to understand the issues facing colleagues and patients and be able to determine the best actions (sometimes without all the facts you would like).
  • Leadership. You need to be a good leader of others. Supporting and developing your colleagues is such an important part of the job of the CNIO. Some of my proudest moments as a CNIO have been seeing others develop into CNIOs (and other clinical leaders) themselves.

Don’t forget development

The CNIO community is a vibrant and very giving one; in my experience, people will be generous with their time to support you and teach you. The benefit for them is that they will also learn from you.

There are digital nurses in all kinds of roles and across sectors, so make your networks big; include non-nurses and don’t be afraid to link up with digital clinicians working in different sectors, including in industry and outside the NHS.

Know you’re part of a team that is continuing to grow

I was one of the first CNIOs in the UK and am very proud of that fact. What I’m more proud of though is that we have grown in number over the last 10 years and that we will continue to grow as a community of CNIOs and digital nurses. I’m proud too that we are now being recognised as an integral part of any healthcare team which is aiming to transform care through the use of technology. Good luck and keep in touch!

About the author: Jo Dickson is chief nurse at NHS Digital. She had a varied clinical background before moving into technology roles, and was previously chief nursing information officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and clinical informatics director at Nuffield Health. Jo is a past chair of the CNIO Network and a founding fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.

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AHPS and Pharmacists Rewired
FeaturedNews

AHPs and pharmacists: The untapped potential in digital health

by Lauren Hoodless
written by Lauren Hoodless

In a joint piece for the Digital Health Networks, Melissa Andison (occupational therapist and associate chief clinical information officer, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust), Euan McComiskie (health informatics lead, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy) and Ramandeep Kaur (lead electronic prescribing and medicines administration pharmacist, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust) reflect on a session from Digital Health Rewired 2022 which looked at the untapped potential of allied health professionals (AHPS) and pharmacists. 

Did you know AHPs, make up the third largest clinical workforce group in health and care – we are 14 professions that are an untapped resource to drive digital transformation and innovation.

Did you know pharmacists with a passion for digital usually commence their careers within informatics implementing electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) systems.

So what’s unique about AHPs and pharmacy staff?  We think about health and wellness differently. The common traits that bind us as a group are often seen in our holistic thinking, collaborative problem solving, health promotion expertise and naturally are adopters of futuristic ways of working.

AHP and pharmacy colleagues are thriving in digital health design, innovation and the cold face of implementation and we feel like it is time to showcase this.

Therefore we joined forces to create events for the Digital Health Rewired programme which captured the fantastic work of AHP and Pharmacy colleagues in digital health. They are the very first pharmacist and AHPs to sit on the chief clinical information officer (CCIO) and chief nursing information officer (CNIO) advisory panels.

With a passion for their professions and digital health, they wanted to give their AHP and pharmacy peers a real opportunity to showcase their work as digital leaders, something which had never been done before at Rewired.

Better representation

One of these sessions was chaired by Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s AHP information officer, Ali Toft. The session included talks from Sarah Thompson (CCIO, Stockport NHS Foundation Trust), Christopher Tack (AHP information officer, Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust), Rafiah Patel (chief data ethics and privacy officer, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust) Anna Awoliyi (chief AHO information officer, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust) and Professor Suzanne Martin (chief AHP officer, Department of Health Northern Ireland).

The multidisciplinary panellists gave a short presentation on their digital journey on the second day of Digital Health Rewired which was then followed by a Q&A.

How better to represent AHPs and Pharmacy than having an operating department practitioner, speech and language therapist physiotherapist, pharmacist and occupational therapist to share their stories and inspire others to follow careers in digital health.

After chairing the session, Toft said: “Our first ever AHP & Pharmacy rewired session was a privilege to chair and be part of.

“It was packed with inspiring stories regarding the diversity of digital career journeys and the importance of putting yourself forward and grasping any opportunities along the way, whilst the array of amazing and collaborative digitally enabled transformation projects we contribute to in our professions was clear to be seen.”

Workshop reflections 

After the panel session, Kaur and McComiskie chaired a workshop which looked at three specific questions; how do we raise the voices of the profession? (Identity), how do we raise the voices of the profession? (Leadership) and how do we bring digital into the portfolio of AHPs and Pharmacy colleagues into undergraduate level? (Learning).

A summary of our findings are as follows:

Identity

  • Need to better market digital within our professions and outside our professions
  • Put ourselves out there more in social media, trust intranet pages, leads meetings etc on a regular basis to keep up momentum
  • Showcase good practice in our trust and to our community and don’t be afraid to ask for advice too
  • Challenge AfC barriers of current roles
  • Build career pathways/routes for digital
  • Myth busting about what it involves
  • Allyship with other less heard professions
  • Collaboration with those mature digital professions
  • Burst existing echo chambers

Leadership

  • Upskill
  • Be enthusiastic and approachable
  • Take initiative and embrace opportunities
  • Networking with staff who have established careers in digital
  • Role modelling with staff newer to the digital career journey
  • Be fearless and confident
  • Be comfortable in challenging and breaking barriers
  • Own our personal development
  • Gain respect from other professions

Learning

  • Early introduction to undergraduate curriculum
  • Easy access to resources
  • Placements, rotations or shadowing with digital organisations and parts of NHS trusts
  • Career talks/ presentations as part of roadshows incorporated in lectures
  • Embed digital as part of practical and theoretical parts of courses
  • Don’t separate digital from rest of education but make it explicit
  • Digital as a pillar of practice
  • Never assume digital competency

AHP and pharmacy troopers, a poem by Ramandeep Kaur

U stand back listen, watch and learn

Never sure whether to speak or just wait in the hope of your turn

Time for change, we hear you say

AHPs and pharmacy teams, let start today

Proudly showcase your work in the digital sphere

Promote yourselves and each other to break down barriers and a perceived hierarchy tier

Empower, excel and educate, to drive great patient care

Digital world needs you, so go forth, seize the moment and share!

Join our journey

So join us on this journey to seek out your AHP and pharmacy colleagues invested in digital at local, ICS and national level. Perhaps digital leaders in each organisation can plan a coffee morning to kickstart a conversation to raise the profile of your colleagues.

At Summer Schools, take the opportunity to meet one AHP or pharmacy colleague you haven’t spoken with before. Inclusivity, diversity and celebrating the success of each other will allow us to all maximise the benefits of digital health for our staff and patients.

#Peoplebeforetechnology

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Editorial BoardNews

Battling burnout

by Michele
written by Michele

Burnout is defined as the result of “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” – and, as such, is a clear risk for NHS staff.

In this piece developed with the Digital Health Networks Editorial Board, Claire Read explores why burnout might be a particular issue for digital staff, as well as how digitisation can both protect from and lead to burnout.

In the first half of 2020, when the general public were taking to their doorsteps weekly to applaud the efforts of NHS staff in the face of a novel and deadly virus, Ayesha Rahim and her colleagues were busy implementing an electronic patient record (EPR) in the most difficult of circumstances.

Rahim is chief clinical information officer at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. She’s a doctor – a perinatal psychiatrist and also the trust’s deputy chief medical officer. She knows it’s a role which meant she was being thought of as hands were clapped and saucepans banged. But she fears those who were working alongside her to implement the EPR weren’t afforded the same consideration.

“When people clapped for the NHS, they were largely clapping for nurses and doctors – which is a proportion of the people that keep the NHS going, but in deploying an EPR during a pandemic my technical colleagues were working round the clock; ridiculously long hours. It doesn’t occur to people, including clinicians actually, that people are doing that and they’re working really hard.”

The value of recognition

Know that burnout is characterised by the World Health Organisation as “a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” (World Health Organization (2019) “Burn-out an ‘occupational phenomenon’: International Classification of Diseases) and it becomes clear why it’s an issue of general concern in the NHS workforce, particularly given the past two years. But add the lack of recognition of the efforts of digital staff and it perhaps becomes more of a worry still in this group.

It’s why Rahim puts acknowledging the contribution of such colleagues high up on her list of ways to reduce the risk of burnout. “Recognising the immense value of people in digital to supporting lifesaving care helps us to appreciate staff who have been working very hard through difficult times, just as clinical staff have.”

And while many clinicians have still been working on site, many of those who purely work on digital projects have been working from home – isolated to some extent, with contact with colleagues being through a Teams or Zoom box rather than an opportunistic in-person talk while making coffee in the kitchen.

Such digital working may have become the norm but, for Aasha Cowey – strategic transformation lead at Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust – it has not yet been perfected. And that, she fears, has consequences for stress and burnout risk.

“I don’t think we’ve optimised the use of digital in the way we work,” she says. “Sometimes online collaboration makes sense – I can’t be the only person who has previously driven halfway across the country for a two hour meeting before. Yet I’m not sure we have found the optimal balance to maintain meaningful peer support and connectivity.

“There’s also some really practical stuff like what sort of devices our staff have, is their Wi-Fi and remote connection up to the job, and do they know how to get the most out of the digital tools they’re using on a daily basis,” she adds.

Time to optimise

The point is one echoed and reinforced by Sarah Newcombe, chief nursing information officer at Great Ormond Street for Children NHS Foundation Trust. Its EPR went live in April 2019, but Newcombe says the pandemic means opportunities to ensure it’s working optimally for staff have been more limited than they might have been otherwise.

“We missed out on that optimisation phase of the system, and I think Covid is a lot of the reason for that. I certainly worked clinically to support operational work during the early phases of Covid. That was the right thing to do, but it meant the ability to support clinical teams in the digital transformation was lost.

“So what’s happened is staff have kind of created workarounds on the EPR, because they’ve not had that influence or that support from the team leading on its implementation.

“I always look at workarounds as innovation in many ways, because that’s the clinicians finding their own way around something that doesn’t work that well for them,” she says. “So I want to get to is them sharing that innovation; them being able to feed back to me and say: ‘Sarah, look, we’ve found this way of doing it, we think it’s better, what do you think?’ And then we can set that as a standard across the whole organisation.”

And if we want digital to reduce burnout rather than add to it, then evidence suggests EPR optimisation should be a key priority. It has been reported (Gawande A, “Why doctors hate their computers” The New Yorker, 2018) that poorly designed IT systems are a key factor in clinician burnout, and Rahim is not surprised.

“I do one clinical day a week clinical, the rest of my time is doing digital work. Yesterday was my clinical day, and I worked from 8am to 9pm and two and a half of those hours were because my tech just wasn’t working as it should do. It added two and a half hours to my 13-hour day.

“I think we don’t place enough emphasis on user-centred design and design thinking in clinical systems,” she concludes. “Quite frankly, if I had that problem that I was having yesterday five days a week in my clinical job, it sucks the joy out of clinical work and would make me not want to do this.”

The fear of what’s next

As with so much else, that sort of feeling might be compounded by the pandemic and – particularly – the uncertainty of how it will progress. Newcombe sums this up powerfully, and highlights why the risk of burnout is going nowhere soon.

“Hospitals have not yet stepped away from Covid but the nation has started to step away,” she argues. “I honestly feel when I come into work it’s like travelling in two parallel worlds. You go on buses, trams, trains and people aren’t necessarily wearing masks; I choose to still wear a mask on public transport but if I chose to take it off one day it wouldn’t be considered a problem. And then I arrive at work and every other desk is empty to protect each other, and I wear a mask all day.

“For healthcare personnel, Covid is still very real. There’s the fear of what’s next.” And, therefore, an urgent need to find ways to avoid burnout among staff and ensure digital platforms aren’t further contributing to it.

Combatting digital fatigue and the back-to-back age

Back in March 2020, it was a revelation to be able to meet colleagues on Teams rather than having to find the miraculous meeting room which was free at a time mutually convenient to all (and to then have to turf out the team squatting in there at the point your booking began). Stress dropped away. Now, however, there’s concern we may have gone too far the other way.

“In some ways we’ve had a bit of digital overload, and we’ve all talked about Zoom fatigue, video fatigue, so we need to be mindful that technology isn’t always the panacea,” argues Ayesha Rahim, chief clinical information officer and deputy chef medical director at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

“Stepping away and learning to reconnect on an in-person basis might be something that is more valuable, although I’m sure digital does have a role in some domains. We just have to think a bit more broadly.”

She suggests managers could valuably schedule ‘chat time’ for employees now working remotely – trying to replicate the sort of conversations which would happen more opportunistically in person.

“It almost feels like a slightly naughty thing to do – ‘We’re having a meeting but we’re not actually getting any business done.’ Actually you can’t be constantly doing business, all 40 hours that you work in a week. It’s not healthy and actually reduces productivity if anything. So having some scheduled time to just chat about what you’ve been watching on Netflix or share pictures of your pets can really help.”

Similarly, she feels managers need to protect their staff from the back-to-back meeting culture that seems to have developed during the pandemic, perhaps due to the ease of setting up a Teams call.

“You need to have some time blocked off regularly, in your diary, where you don’t get assigned a specific piece of work and you use that in the way that you see fit,” she argues. “I think that would be a way that we could reduce that constant treadmill feeling.”

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News

’35 under 35′ bursary programme for Summer Schools 2022 is launched

by Lauren Hoodless
written by Lauren Hoodless

35 under 35A brand-new bursary programme for the 2022 Summer Schools has been launched with the aim of supporting future digital leaders.

The “35 under 35” programme has been created to help identify, promote and support future digital leaders and future talent in the UK health informatics and digital health sector.

Those 35 and under who have just started their healthcare IT journey are invited to apply for the bursary and people are also able to nominate their colleagues.

As part of its charter, FEDIP has pledged to support the programme and the bursary covers a place at the Digital Health Networks Summer Schools and one-year membership of a FEDIP Member Body, which comprise of the following Professional Bodies:

  • Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA)
  • The Chartered Institute for IT (BCS)
  • The Chartered Library and Information Association (CILIP)
  • Institute of Health Records and Information Management (IHRIM)
  • The Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FCI)
  • Society for Innovation, Technology and Modernisation (SOCITM)

The programme has been launched as part of the ‘Year of the Digital Profession’, which seeks to encourage the growth and maturity of the digital professions, to support the building of specialist skills and to support organizations to deliver sustainable digital transformation.

Jon Hoeksma, CEO of Digital Health, said: “The new Fed-IP 35 under 35 programme is a great initiative to build the profile and confidence of future digital leaders from all parts of the NHS.  We’re thrilled to be partnering with Fed-IP on this in the Year of the Digital Profession.

“As well as offering Summer School bursary places to 35 digital leaders under the age of 35 the programme will support emerging leaders in their professional development and provide opportunities for mentorship and support from existing leaders.”

Digital Health Summer Schools is an NHS IT leadership event that will run in-person 14-15 July, 2022, at the University of York. The event provides two days of education, networking and best practice exchange.

Those interested have until 11.59pm on Friday 29 April to get their application in and the bursary is open across the UK to both those nominating themselves and those nominating others.

Applicants from members and prospective members of Fed-IP or affiliated bodies are also welcome.

To learn more and apply, please click here.

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CNIO HandbookNews

CNIO Handbook Chapter 1

by Lauren Hoodless
written by Lauren Hoodless

The value of nursing digital leadership

Sarah Hanbridge, chief clinical information officer, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and chair, CNIO Network

It’s about two and a half years since I become a chief clinical information officer, meaning I very formally became the leader of digital nursing in a trust. But when I think about it, I’ve always been a champion of nurses leading digital change – I just didn’t realise it.

I have always sought opportunities to improve the quality of care and, right at the start of my career, I saw that digitisation could be an important way of doing this. In the late 1990s, as a junior staff nurse, I was lucky enough to work in an organisation that was very forward thinking and which implemented an electronic patient record. I immediately saw how the quality of our nursing documentation improved after the transition from handwritten notes. I became convinced of the value of digital to nursing.

I also saw how important it was to empower nurses, midwives and allied health professionals to own digital change. I saw that only by providing colleagues with the required training and skills will digital solutions be fully incorporated into nursing practice.

The importance of digital tools

Fast forward to 2020, and I could never have predicted how important digital tools would have become to the provision of effective nursing care. During the pandemic, as it has become harder to deliver care face-to-face, remote monitoring has become even more important.

The pandemic has truly tested the nursing profession. But it has also helped us understand more than ever how digital can help us to do our jobs well and look after our patients to the best of our abilities.

Pre-Covid we had all lived and breathed the challenges of digitalisation. Then in a world of uncertainty during extremely difficult times, even previously sceptical nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and other clinicians turned towards digital solutions to ensure patients continued to receive health and social care.

Strong nursing leadership helped make this possible. I think it’s fair to say that nurses are renowned problem solvers who bring solutions to the table. That’s part of why I wanted to become a chief clinical information officer. I wanted to help bring the innovative thinking of nurses to the forefront and make sure it was central to new ways of working.

I see that as a big part of why nursing digital leadership is so valuable. It brings attention to the voices of frontline nurses, who are key to successfully introducing and implementing new healthcare models. That includes new digital models.

Listening and sharing

In my experience, transformation only happens by listening to people to understand what does and does not work. CNIOs do that listening work, and then make sure those views are taken into account when digital solutions are designed and implemented. We work collaboratively with other clinicians and with IT teams and developers to make sure solutions are safe, efficient and help support improvements in the quality of patient care.

Typically, the CNIO role doesn’t come with the autonomy to make decisions single-handedly. Instead it’s about influencing, about making relationships, about telling a convincing and persuasive story about what is required by frontline nurses.

Then, when a new solution is introduced, we make sure our colleagues have the training and support they need to use it to its full capacity.

I really believe that all the digital projects I’ve been involved in show the importance of that kind of leadership and input. One that springs to mind is a project I worked on at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. I was a senior nurse programme manager for the Digital Control Centre – a programme using digital means to help more efficiently manage patients, staff and equipment.

Much of the Digital Control Centre work was about redesigning operational processes. But the only way that could work was if there was clinical engagement, and that’s where I came in. I could liaise with staff to understand exactly what would work best.

We did a lot of pilots as part of the overall programme. I remember working with staff on some inpatient medical wards to explore the introduction of a task management process. The idea was to help advance understanding of capacity and demand, and support clinical safety.

Through those conversations with clinical staff we realised what the gaps were, what the bottlenecks were. And we gained a vision of what future iterations of the solution might look like. That’s the invaluable contribution that can be made by CNIOs and other clinical IT leaders.

“Don’t tell me about the software system”

During that programme, I started using a phrase I now utter all the time. “Don’t tell me about the software system,” I’d say. “Tell me about the people and the processes.” That’s what I’m interested in, and where I think I and other CNIOs can add value.

It’s why I feel that it’s important to keep building the numbers of CNIOs. But in the NHS the role of chief clinical information officer is still a relatively new one – let alone that of a chief nursing information officer. That means the idea of becoming a digital nurse leader can be daunting. You might know you want to ultimately become a CNIO but have no idea how to get there. Or you might have been appointed a CNIO and be seeking some support.

That’s the whole purpose of the CNIO Network. It provides a buddying approach to mentorship and coaching for existing CNIOs while supporting the professional development of aspiring CNIOs. One of its major aims is to promote best practice, learning and collaboration.

That’s also the purpose of this Handbook. It brings together personal stories and learning from nursing digital leaders, sharing experience and expertise which will be useful to others interested in the field. You’ll find it helpful whether you’re new to a chief nursing information officer or allied health professional IT role, or whether you’re considering progressing into such a role.

We also aim to further increase the profile and recognition of the CNIO role. Because as digital becomes more and more important to healthcare, so does strong nursing leadership in this area.

About the author: Sarah Hanbridge is chief clinical information officer of The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and chair of the CNIO Network, a role to which she was elected in July 2021. She has been a nurse for 26 years, involved in digital nursing nursing for much of that time, and took up her first formal digital nursing post in 2017.

Chapter two of the CNIO Handbook will be published in April 2022.

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Editorial BoardNews

Welcome to the new home of Digital Health Networks

by Lauren Hoodless
written by Lauren Hoodless

Digital Health has launched a new dedicated website to provide a home for our community of NHS IT leaders.

The Digital Health Networks is a 7,000 strong independent professional community of NHS IT leaders, focused on collaboration and sharing best practice on the effective use of digital technologies and data across the NHS. Over 90% of NHS provider organisations have membership within the community.

The Networks are delivered through a vibrant online community and series of events including the annual Summer School, which in 2022, will run at the University of York on 14 and 15 July.

The Networks are centred on three foundation networks: the Chief Clinical Information Officer Network; the Chief Information Officer Network and the Chief Nursing Information Officer Network.

Each foundation Network has a directly elected advisory panel representing their respective community and speaking on their behalf on national issues.

A series of further specialist networks are also hosted including the Faculty of Clinical Informatics; Clinical Safety Officers; Caldicott Guardians; Primary Care Informatics; and a Supplier group.

The new website provides a home for all of Network articles, resources, events and our online forum, bringing them all together in one place for the first time.

Crucially, the new website provides information on the benefits of joining the Networks and offer NHS IT leaders a simple way to sign-up and join in. There are also testimonials, details of recent work of each network and the membership of the Advisory Panels.

Jon Hoeksma, CEO of Digital Health said: “Members of the Networks told us they wanted an easier way to access the networks and find resources.  I hope the new website will make this unique community much easier to join and take part in.”

Lauren Hoodless, head of Networks at Digital Health, added: “I am delighted that we are launching the new home of our Networks.

“It’s a vibrant and informative space for new and current members to learn more about what the community has to offer and putting our advisory panel activity front and centre. We hope the community enjoy this new space”.

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