Nominate your champion of 2015

Nominations have opened for the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year, a special category of the EHI Awards 2015 that will be decided by you, the readers of Digital Health News.

Readers are asked to put forward the name of an individual who has worked tirelessly to promote healthcare IT, whether that is through a job at a national organisation, trust, supplier, or patient organisation.

Those nominated will be asked if they are happy for their names to go forward, after which readers will be asked to vote on who should be named the winner at the annual EHI Awards dinner in October.

Jon Hoeksma, the CEO and editor of Digital Health Intelligence Limited, which runs Digital Health News, the new name for EHI News, said: “The Healthcare IT Champion of the Year was set up by EHI to recognise both the leaders and unsung heroes of healthcare IT.

“Because it is voted for by our readers, it is truly a special award and always keenly contested.

“Every year, many wonderful names from across UK healthcare IT are put forward by colleagues, friends and admirers, so we look forward to seeing who the readers of Digital Health News will nominate in 2015. We wish all the nominees every success.”

This year, the EHI Awards are being run, for the first time, by Informa, following the sale of the awards and the EHI Live conference and exhibition to the company in November.

If you would like to nominate somebody, you need to request a nomination form from the EHI Awards website or by email from the organisers.

Nominations will close on Friday 12 June at 4pm and voting will then take place over the summer. This year’s awards night black tie dinner will take place in the ballroom of the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge on Thursday, 1 October.

The Healthcare IT Champion of the Year will be announced alongside the winners of 12 other categories, entries for which must be in by the just extended deadline of Friday, 15 May.

Neil Hadland, head of events for Informa, said: “The Healthcare IT Champion of the Year is a highlight of the EHI Awards, so we are delighted to be able to announce that this category is now open for nominations.

“We look forward to giving the winner the chance to celebrate in style at the awards’ stunning new venue in the very heart of London.”

Last year, the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year award went to Dr Rick Jones, a former specialist advisor to NHS England’s National Pathology Programme, and a consultant at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Sadly, Dr Jones had passed away after he was nominated, but his friends and family asked for his name to go forward, and picked up the award on his behalf.

Previous winners have included: Kemi Adenubi, then-GP Systems of Choice programme director for the Health and Social Care Information Centre, Neil Darvill, the director of St Helens and Knowsley Health Informatics Service, and James Norman, then- IM&T director of Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.