Health IT professionals register goes public

Are your health IT professionals registered? From this week on, employers and others who need to know can now look up entries on the register of the UK Council for Health Informatics Professions.

Over 2,500 qualified health informaticians have signed up for voluntary registration with the UKCHIP since its launch in 2002. The register is now online at http://www.ukchip.org

All entrants have been assessed as fit to practice in informatics to support health. Once registered, there are requirements for continuing professional development to achieve re-registration. Registrants also sign up to a code of conduct.

President of UKCHIP Dr Glyn Hayes said: “It is intended that UKCHIP registration will become the currency by which employers will describe the competency level they expect of staff and contractors through job adverts, contract specifications and professional staff development activity.”

The aim is to develop registration to a point where it becomes mandatory for all who operate in health informatics in the UK. The council says progress on this aim is subject to discussion with the regulatory body, the Health Professions Council, and in alignment with emerging changes in regulation within health and social care.

The council’s overall aims are in line with those adopted by other regulated professions such as medicine and nursing, namely:

• To promote advance and encourage the study and practice of the application of informatics in the promotion of health, wellbeing and dying with dignity;
• To establish, uphold and improve the standards of qualifications training competence and conduct of health informaticians in the UK;
• To establish mechanisms for the benefit and protection of the public;
• To collaborate with official bodies, societies and professional associations on matters relating to the above.