Health Informatics Areas of
Work on the ESR
ESR Road Shows 2013
Patrick Dodge
Developing Informatics Skills & Capability (DISC)
Health and Social Care Information Centre
1
Aims for the next 30 minutes
The aims of this session are to:
• Explain what health informatics is
• Show why health informatics is important
now
• and Identify the workforce...
...in order to describe the new health
informatics Areas of Work on the ESR
What is Health Informatics?
Health Informatics – a Definition
• ‘The knowledge, skills and tools which
enable information to be collected,
managed, used and shared to support the
delivery of healthcare and to promote
health.’
• “Making Information Count - A Human
Resources Strategy for Health Informatics
Professionals ” DH (2002)
Informatics and IT
• Informatics and IT are not the same thing.
• Informatics is a process as described in
the definition
• IT provides us with tools to practice
informatics (in increasingly advanced
ways)
• If we did not have IT we would still need to
practice Informatics as we use and
manage information and data
Why is Informatics important now?
The Power of Information (2012)
The Power of Information (May 2012)
Putting all of us in control of the health and care information we need
• To realise the enormous potential benefits of information to
improve our care and our health outcomes, this strategy sets
the following ambitions:
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Information used to drive integrated care across the entire health and social
care sector, both within and between organisations
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Information regarded as a health and care service in its own right for us all –
with appropriate support in using information available for those who need
it, so that information benefits everyone and helps reduce inequalities
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A change in culture and mindset, in which our health and care
professionals, organisations and systems recognise that information in our
own care records is fundamentally about us – so that it becomes normal for
us to access our own records easily;�• �
The Francis Enquiry (2013)
Information Governance Review 2013
Changing Demographics & Expectations
Access to Records – A Common Theme
• A Key ambition (as stated in The Power of
Information) is:
• A change in culture and mindset, so that our health and care
professionals, organisations and systems recognise that the
information in each of our own care records is fundamentally
about us – and so that it becomes routine for us to be able to
access our own records online. The accelerating pace of
technological change offers unprecedented
• “Electronic access to our own care records where we request it will
start with GP records by 2015 and our social care records as soon
as IT systems allow. Work with patient, service user and
professional bodies and with industry will enable this access to
expand progressively to our records across health and care.”
Information Flow
Why is it important to identify the health informatics
workforce?
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To support the Information Revolution
Patient centred information services
“no decision about me without me”
New roles as a result of transition
Workforce redesign
Workforce planning
New training and development needs
Flexible workforce required to do more with less
Fast changing and demanding technological
environment
– Changing demographics and public expectations
Identifying the workforce
• NHS Wales Were the first to develop workforce
profiling tools to identify the informatics
workforce
• Organisational level tool
– Designed to help organisations identify their
informatics workforce
• Individual level tool
– Designed to be completed by individuals to highlight
their skills qualifications and experience in informatics
Identifying the workforce
• NHS East Midlands modified and delivered the
individual level profile
• NHS Northwest modified and developed the
organisational level profile
• Taking the figures from Wales, NHS East
Midlands and NHS North West we discovered
that health informatics represented 3% of their
total workforces.
NHS staff numbers showing extrapolated figure of 3% of staff
being informatics (2011)
Type of staff
Total in the NHS
3% representing
informatics
NHS England *
1,431,557
42,946
General Practice (excluding
GPs and Practice Nurses)*
98,330
2,949
NHS Wales (total NHS
staff)**
91,000
2,951 (actual)
Arms lengths Bodies***
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Totals
*www.ic.nhs.uk
**www.wales.gov.uk
***DH Informatics Transition programme
1,543 (actual)
50,389
The Health Informatics Career Framework
• Developed via an intensive stakeholder
engagement process in partnership with NHS
Wales
• Launched on 14th May 2008
• Approximately 200 job roles in current phase
• Structured in a three-tier model which
complements the current ESR dataset structure
www.hicf.org.uk
Health Informatics Specialisms
Informatics Areas of Work Values
• Using the Health Informatics Career Framework as a foundation, a new set
of Area of Work values have been approved for use in the National
Workforce Dataset (NWD) by the Information Standards Board.
• The new Area of Work values are:
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Health Records
Clinical Informatics
Coding (formerly clinical coding)
Information and Communication Technology
Informatics Education and Training
Programmes and Projects
Information management (formerly information services)
Informatics strategy and development
Knowledge management (formerly library services)
Informatics AoW Manual
• Informatics AoW Manual
Any Questions...?