What is Health Informatics?
Health informatics is the name given to the way in which information is acquired, stored and retrieved in the delivery of healthcare, and the information technologies used to support this. Health informatics plays an important part in supporting NHS services.
The Informatics Directorate:
- Provides NHS-side Leadership around the National Programme for IT
- Articulates the national IT strategy and provides leadership to NHS organisations in the area of Health Informatics
- Provides an assurance and monitoring role for key areas of IT strategy and policy
- Provides direct support and expertise to organisations in defined areas and projects
The Informatics Directorate is lead by Alan Spours, Chief Information Officer for NHS North West. Before joining NHS North West, Alan worked for Acute Trusts as Director of Informatics. His key responsibilities at the SHA are the strategic direction of NHS North West Informatics, the delivery of the National Programme for IT and QIPP initiatives.
Supporting Alan is Debbie Bywater, Deputy Chief Information Officer.
* Pen Picture Pending
A key area of work for the Directorate at the moment is interpreting the White Paper and Information Revolution proposals and mapping out the role of Informatics as the NHS goes through substantial transformation in the next few months. More information about the Information Revolution proposals can be found on the Department of Health's web site.
Informatics is supporting the delivery of the QIPP agenda across the North West and has its own workstream within the programme, delivering specific savings and supporting the delivery of many others. The team is also supporting Transforming Community Services (TCS) and is involved in reviewing and approving the IT components of TCS plans.
The Directorate comprises four teams:
The Directorate has close links with the Health Informatics Clinical Advisory Team, which manages a network of ‘Clinical Health Informatics Leads’ (CHIL).
Key areas of work for the Informatics Directorate include:
Deployment and Planning/Programme Management Office
This team is lead by Vince Garvey and is predominantly concerned with the overall deployment and governance of the Lorenzo Regional Care (LRC) Programme. Lorenzo Regional Care is the National Programme for IT system offering electronic patient records which are joined up across local health communities.
The team has Deployment Assurance Managers who support, guide and monitor LRC deployments in Trusts across the North West. There is a Commercial Lead who manages the day to day contractual operation with the system supplier. Within the team there is a Programme Management Office, which supports, guides and monitors contractual obligations and provides standard reporting from NHS North West up to the Department of Health. The PMO also supports the reporting of many other NHS initiatives such as QIPP.
Key contacts:
Vince Garvey, Head of Deployment and Planning: vince.garvey@northwest.nhs.uk
Sue Spencer, Programme Office Manager: susan.spencer@northwest.nhs.uk
Requirements and Implementation
The Requirements & Implementation team is a multi-disciplinary team, led by Mike McKenna, which is responsible for leading on:
- Ensuring that the NHS's requirements are built into IT systems delivered via the National Programme for IT
- Ensuring that information systems are "fit for purpose"
- Ensuring that information systems are properly tested and assured before and during their use
- Working with and supporting organisations in the deployment and use of information systems
- Specifically engaging with clinicians around areas of clinical content, clinical functionality and clinical safety
The team also includes Service Improvement, which offers benefits realisation, change management and communications activities.
Benefits Realisation and Change Management involves mentoring, training and providing networks to enable Trusts to have the skills to handle large and small scale change. We also actively promote and advise Trusts on providing clear benefits before starting out on any project and making sure they have the tools, techniques and resources to ensure those benefits are realised and that they are able to prove worthwhile investment of public funds.
Communications activities include providing advice and guidance to Trusts on internal and external communications issues around IT deployments. We promote best practice by sharing toolkits and lessons learned from IT deployments across a variety of Trusts and are actively involved in shaping and influencing nationally produced materials and campaigns, ensuring the views of the North West are represented.
Key contacts:
Mike McKenna, Head of Requirements and Implementation: mike.mckenna@northwest.nhs.uk
Barbara Smith & Jenni West, Benefits Realisation and Change Managers: change.benefits@northwest.nhs.uk
Rachel Hanson, Communications Lead: rachel.hanson@northwest.nhs.uk
Service Management
The Service Management Team is currently being led by Sue Brady (who is covering Rachel Dunscombe’s maternity leave). The team is made up of Service Delivery Programme Managers who provide the Service Management function for National Programme for IT service delivery across the North West.
They also provide advice and guidance on Technical Infrastructure, Service Desk Accreditation, processes and procedures around IT deployments, support in escalation of local IT issues to the appropriate regional or national level, and general service management tools, amongst other things.
Key contacts:
Sue Brady, Head of Service Management: susan.brady@northwest.nhs.uk
Service Management: SMT@northwest.nhs.uk, 07827 878400.
Primary Care and Information Management
The Primary Care team is led by Terri Holcroft and supports the delivery of key IT innovations and National Programme for IT systems specifically in Primary Care. This includes systems such as Choose and Book, Summary Care Records, Electronic Prescription Service and GP2P *all links to CFH pages for more information.
Information Management is led by Jon Coolican and sets the direction of information use across the SHA and the wider NHS in the North West. This includes advising on how best make use of the wide range of information and information services to improve health, as well as providing guidance on data quality, use of NHS number, the Secondary Uses Service, pseudonymisation, and the use of knowledge and collaboration portals to support the work of the NW health community.
Key contacts:
Primary Care & Choose and Book: terri.holcroft@northwest.nhs.uk
Information Management: jon.coolican@northwest.nhs.uk
Summary Care Record: richard.glyn-jones@northwest.nhs.uk
The HICAT Mission Statement
The Health Informatics Clinical Advisory Team works across the complete healthcare spectrum ensuring that the people of the North West enjoy better care, better health and a better life, through the innovative and efficient use of Information Technology.
The team aspires to:
1. Ensure that the North West leads the country in terms of setting a regional structure of expert clinicians for championing the use of Information Technology
2. Engage and empower clinicians to enable them to play a central role in the development and deployment of IT Systems & solutions
3. Reduce the IT related bureaucratic and administrative mess that clinicians find themselves in
4. Assess and promote the piloting and implementation of new to the market Information Technology
5. Ensure organisations use systems that are inter-operable
6. Ensure that Health Informatics is embedded into the undergraduate and postgraduate medical curriculums
7. Put patients at the heart of Health Informatics by empowering, educating and enabling them to make informed decisions about their own health, through accessing personal and clinical information
Key contacts:
Andy Coley, Chief Clinical Officer: andrew.coley@northwest.nhs.uk
Yvonne McGlinchey, Project Manager: yvonne.mcglinchey@northwest.nhs.uk