As we know, the past six months has seen a great deal of change within the Health Service. This change has, as with everywhere else, been evident within the informatics department of the NHS, with the new Health and Social Care Informatics Centre (HSCIC) coming into operation at the beginning of April. This new department is vitally important to all future developments within the Health Service and was emphasised when Mark Davis visited the National Allied Health Professionals Informatics Strategic Taskforce (NAHPIST). Mark is the director of clinical and public assurance, and it was in this meeting that the power of the information we all create was highlighted. In future, all developments within patient care will have to be supported by evidence, and information technology (IT) will support these rather than vice versa, as has been the case in some NHS change programmes. Not only this, but the information we produce will have to be made available to this new body when they request it; therefore, the way information is collated will have to be robust, accessible and in a format that can be easily transferred.
This was a very important day. Not only was this change in direction announced to NAHPIST, but Mark went on to fully endorse the work that NAHPIST had already done and said that HSCIC would support the group in the future, one of the first groups to be assured of this level of support from the new informatics department. The achievements of NAHPIST have been varied since its inception and have included providing an integrated informatics expert reference body for the 12 Allied Health Professions (AHP), developing an AHP focused Information Strategy Resource and Implementation Guide, and providing a number of workshops on the subject of informatics and information governance.
David Davis has also produced a timely and important document on the importance of Clinical Informatics Networks. He has highlighted a number of recommendations within the document, some of which aim for a greater degree of integration and information sharing, identifying and developing best practice, facilitating innovation and working towards an early mainstreaming of informatics.
The e-learning course that is provided by the Cisco Learning Network (CLN) is worth mentioning again. Their course is for clinicians from all backgrounds, both pre- and post-registration. The course highlights areas such as Introduction to Information Governance, Access to Information and Information Sharing in the NHS, the Importance of Good Clinical Record Keeping, the Language of Health: Clinical Coding and Terminology, Clinical Information Systems and eHealth: and The Future Direction. Some of these areas will have been highlighted by individual ambulance trusts and, along with other subjects such as good record keeping, are all important enough to keep up-to-date on.
Yvonne Pettigrew, who was until this year one of the national clinical leads for AHPs, has published a piece of work called ‘Making it Happen-The power of information: Putting all of us in control of the health and care information we need,’ that will help us all understand the requirements of better information.
One of the main concerns is that there are not enough people from all professions that have any knowledge in informatics. E-Learning for Healthcare has an online course that teaches the basics in informatics. This course has been developed by the Department of Health to provide an introduction to health informatics for those who may be thinking of moving into the field or who just have a general interest.
What now? We need everyone to at least have an understanding of this important work that is taking place and how information is being used to develop new services either within the community or within secondary care. We would love to know how this use of information and informatics has changed some of the services you are involved with and we would like to use them in upcoming articles for the College of Paramedics and possibly in other settings.