UKCHIP signs 1000th member

The UK Council for Health Informatics Professions has signed up its 1000th member – Michelle Walrond, an IT manager for the Parkbury House Surgery in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

Walrond has been working as an IT manager for over two years at the surgery and felt that the time was right to join UKCHIP – the council responsible for promoting professionalism in health informatics.

“I wanted to prove my credentials as a qualified health informatician, and thought it would reflect well on the practice,” she said.

Walrond logged onto the UKCHIP website and filled in the 10-page registration form, detailing her occupation, and her plans for professional development in health informatics.

“It took me just over two hours, following the same sort of process I would have expected when applying for a job. I found the Continuing Professional Development section the longest as this needed the most thought and planning for the year ahead.

“I did find it difficult to find the balance between experience against qualifications. It was reassuring to know that official qualifications are not essential if you can prove relevant experience.”

For Walrond, her pathway to becoming an IT manager started years ago when she was a receptionist at the surgery, with next to no informatics knowledge.

“When I first started I had no IT experience, but I knew the clinical system (Vision) very well from working in reception for many years. It was a steep learning curve as I had to completely learn from scratch all about servers – setting up users profiles, email accounts, and backup – computer software & troubleshooting, and printer hardware and software, but I now feel like I can’t remember a life before IT!”

She now has a busy surgery to deal with ensuring that all IT services are operating at all times and targets are being met.

“I ensure the system is running smoothly on a day-to-day basis, resolve any IT-related issues that GPs and administrative staff are having and also have a heavy involvement with the national General Medical Services (nGMS) contract.

“The contract involves ensuring that we meet certain targets of the QOF, for example, ensuring that we have blood pressure recordings for 90% of hypertensive patients. My role is to perform searches to analyse areas that we have a shortfall and ensure that we do the necessary work such as letters, phone calls, & appointments to ensure we meet the targets.”

As well as Department of Health initiatives, Walrond is also responsible for monitoring the progress of Connecting for Health projects.

“We’ve recently had a £500,000 building extension which involved lots of IT changes so things have been very hectic recently too. My role also involves the implementation of the National Programme for IT at the lowest practical level. We have had to work through the technical difficulties of setting up smartcard access, using Choose and Book and electronic prescribing, whilst ensuring patients are fully involved in the security issues.”

As a member of UKCHIP, Walrond feels that she has the encouragement to progress with her career in health informatics.

“I found it made me think about my continuing profession development and what I needed to keep up to date and advance my career. I understand registration may well become mandatory in the future, and I wanted to get in early.”

Her colleague, Richard Pile, a GP at the surgery echoed that sentiment: “We are assured that we have a competent health informatician who can demonstrate her commitment, and will continue to develop her career in line with current developments in NHS IT.”

To celebrate their 1000th member UKCHIP sent council member Roz Foad to meet Michelle and Richard and present Walrond with a membership certificate, flowers and a bottle of champagne.

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