CCIO network project team appointed

A talented team of three highly experienced clinical information leaders has agreed to take on project roles with the CCIO Leaders Network, to support the acceleration and development of chief clinical information officers.

The virtual team will work with Digital Health Intelligence, host of the CCIO Leaders Network, to catalyse the further development of the CCIO movement over the coming year.

Jo Dickson will lead work on nursing informatics leadership, Dr Joe McDonald will lead work on supporting more doctors to take on CCIO roles, and Dr Marcus Baw will lead on developing an online best practice collaboration community.

The three project roles are made possible thanks to support and investment in CCIO development by NHS England. A junior doctor project role will also be appointed shortly.

The CCIO Leaders Network grew out of the successful CCIO Campaign to encourage NHS providers to appoint clinicians to lead on IT and information projects.

A key focus for the network in 2015 will be nursing development. This will include a strong nursing strand as part of the prestigious annual CCIO Summer School.

Another key objective will be to deliver an extended programme of best practice events, webinars and online tools to support the exchange of ideas and collaboration. 

Dickson, the lead nurse – informatics at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, will help to encourage more nurses to consider information leadership as part of their career.

Her project work will focus on creating online reference resources and events that are targeted at nurses. 

She said: “There is great clinical leadership around, but not that many nurses… When I started out, it wasn’t seen as a career path, but I’m very keen to make sure people now understand the possibilities for them.”

Dickson added that she also wants nurses who take on information roles to make the most of the chance to be involved in a national network.

“It’s about having a discussion with people in similar situations. They may have a different opinion or the same opinion, but it’s fantastic to have conversations with people from so many different organisations.”

Dickson will work alongside McDonald, CCIO at Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, and chairman of the CCIO Leaders Network.

In his latest project role, he will also lead on campaigning for more trusts to appoint CCIOs, on developing new reference resources to support current and aspirant CCIOs, and on growing the residential summer school, which this year will be held in his home town of Newcastle, on 16-17 July.

McDonald is also working with Digital Health Intelligence and NHS England to develop a long-term plan for the evolution and development of the CCIO Leaders Network.

"I am delighted that NHS England has chosen to support the development of the CCIO Leaders Network in such a tangible way,” he said.

“I hope that in time the network will become the "go to" group for clinical engagement with national projects and the forum for sharing local successes (and failures) across the NHS – to better deliver the digital transformation we need."

Baw has been working for the past three months on evaluating online discussion and collaboration tools for the CCIO Leaders Network, which has developed into a flourishing private online community.  

This work has included rapidly developing and testing proof of concepts, commissioning development work, and planning and implementing the beta launch of a new Digital Health Networks platform, which has been built using open source tools.

"I'm very pleased to have been in the team that has put these excellent open source tools in the hands of CCIOs.

"I'm hoping they will be of enormous benefit in information sharing within the CCIO Leaders Network, and enable us to better support other health information communities, such as Open Source Skunkworks and the Health CIO Network in the future.”

Baw added: “Also, I hope that having seen the benefits of these excellent communication and document sharing platforms, CCIOs will be inspired to advocate for similar collaboration tools within their own NHS trusts or clinical commissioning groups.

“Then they will perhaps see the advantages of using the open source options we are showcasing in the Digital Health Networks tools."

To find out more about the social collaboration platform and the summer school, please contact DHI's network administrator, Gillian McDonald.