Health Informatics Areas of Work on the ESR

ESR Road Shows 2013

1

Patrick DodgeDeveloping Informatics Skills & Capability (DISC)Health and Social Care Information Centre

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:

• Information used to drive integrated care across the entire health and social care sector, both within and between organisations

• 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

• 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?

– 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*** - 1,543 (actual)

Totals 50,389*www.ic.nhs.uk**www.wales.gov.uk ***DH Informatics Transition programme

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

Clinical

Informatics

Staff

Knowledge Management

Project &

Programme

Management

Health

Records &

Patient Admin ICT Staff

HI Educators and Trainers

Information

Management

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:– 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...?