Summer school report

A record number of chief clinical information officers gathered in Newcastle this month for a two-day summer school focused on removing barriers to interoperability.

The third annual CCIO Summer School, held at Newcastle University Business School in the shadow of St James’ Park stadium, started with a call to create a ‘Newcastle Declaration’ setting out the need for interoperability and identifying the barriers that need to be removed.

Dr Amir Merkhar, a GP helping to create the Hampshire Health Record to join up primary, acute and even social care records, gave an impassioned presentation about the practical challenges of information sharing.

Then Tony Shannon, the CCIO of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and a pioneer of open source technology, set out a vision of the emerging future of open platforms.

Harnessing the power of the network

The CCIO Network was set up following the successful CCIO Campaign to encourage national and local NHS organisations to appoint clinicians to lead on IT and information issues. Its aim is to support the growing number of CCIOs in place, and to inspire young clinicians to consider informatics as a career path.

So another key theme of the summer school was collating the knowledge and insight of the CCIO Network as an expert leadership community. Digital Health Intelligence analyst Suzanne Armengol presented details of an NHS IT Leadership Survey that is underway. 

This is seeking to establish how boards regard IT, what strategies they are taking towards delivering on the government’s paperless, integrated care, and digital patient initiatives, and what the main barriers are to delivering on these.

Dr Marcus Baw, a locum GP involved in openGPSoC and other initiatives, outlined project plans for a new Clinical Software Usability Survey, which will seek to find out what users think of the IT systems they use every day. He invited CCIOs to join the project team.

Later in the event, Baw also told delegates about the development of the rich community collaboration platform, Discourse. The self-styled ‘Discourse wrangler’, who has been a key figure in the project, led a hands-on workshop on how to get the most out of the platform.

National and international perspectives

Summer school attendees also got to hear about the latest in national and international healthcare IT policy.

Kingsley Manning, the chair of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, gave the keynote on day one, assuring delegates that interoperability was a priority for the centre and outlining emerging priorities.

International perspectives came from Dr Eirik Arnesen from Norway, who gave an overview of the Norwegian summary care record he leads.  He apologised that the Norwegian SCR was a bit thin; but his NHS counterparts assured him it was fat compared to the English SCR.

Dr Martin Orr gave a perspective on the New Zeeland health IT ecosystem and drew contrasts between the way in which New Zealand seems to be moving away from portals; just as the NHS seems to be embracing them.

The strong international flavor was reinforced by a contingent of newly appointed CCIOs from Northern Ireland, where every health board has been funded to make appointments. Irish delegates are also blazing a trail, and looking to secure further appointments.

Reclaiming the co-operative vision

A sign of how much the CCIO Network and Summer School have grown was the two, simultaneous site visits offered to delegates.

Attendees had the chance to visit Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust or the Freeman Hospital, part of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.   

However, the home brew spirit of the CCIO Network was captured by an impromptu early evening street party on the steps of the university halls of residence. The multi-talented Baw treated fellow CCIOs to pilsner and a honey IPA craft beers especially brewed for the Summer School.

And in what has become a tradition, the dinner was held at a memorable venue, the high Victorian magnificence of the Great Hall of the Discovery Museum.

Dr Joe McDonald, a consultant psychiatrist at Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and a former chair of the CCIO Network told diners that the Discovery Museum had been built as the headquarters of the North East branch of the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

The great hall, which was restored in the late 1990s, had been built as the co-operative workers’ restaurant; and often hosted their Christmas parties.

“Somewhere, we lost our way on that respect for the working man, but the co-operative spirit lives on in the network,” he said.

McDonald also invoked the spirit of Newcastle son, Charles Hesterman Merz, the pioneer of high-voltage three-phase AC power distribution in the UK, who built a system in the North East that became the model for the country’s National Grid. Merz gave away his IP in the interest of standardised power distribution in the public interest.

Grand endeavors

Day two saw the theme of philanthropy and investing in the public good continued in the field of NHS IT.

EMIS founder and ‘godfather’ of primary care IT, Dr David Stables, called on delegates to join his ‘grand endeavor’. 

The Endeavor Health Charitable Trust is an ambitious new health charity that Stables has created and to which he has personally committed millions. Its aim is to collaboratively create the open source ‘glue’ needed to enable true interoperability across the NHS. 

Continuing the theme, Ewan Davis and Dr Ian McNichol from NHS England’s Open Source team, gave a preview of the soon to be launched Code4Health platform and explained their ambitions to create a hands-on ‘play pen’ for doctors, nurses and other NHS staff to explore the art of the possible.

Professor Mike Martin from the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise at Newcastle University, meanwhile, challenged delegates to think about different dimensions of interoperability.

He dissected the different perspectives and meanings that people invest in the concept and subsequently took delegates through the Federated IT Lab, a forensic examination of these different dimensions of interoperability.

Former CCIO Network chair Dr Wai Keong Wong’s interoperability 101 guide also provided a brilliant, engaging and highly accessible introduction to the world of data and message standards and their relationships to data models.

Rally around the Newcastle Declaration

A further aspect of the Summer School was an expanded programme of nursing content, with presentations on clinical documentation by Jo Dickson, the lead nurse – informatics at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and clinical safety by Mandy Hollis, a specialist in clinical informatics, improvement and nursing leadership working at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Meanwhile, Dr Tony Smith explored the challenges of the clinical safety officer’s role; one that many CCIOs carry but also find challenging, particularly when asked to rubber stamp approvals of complex clinical systems.

The final session focused on working up the draft ‘Newcastle Declaration’, which aims to provide the clearest possible statement for clinicians, NHS organisation and suppliers on why interoperability is so vital – and what the barriers are that need to be removed. 

Joe McDonald ended with a call to arms to take the energy of the Summer School and build on it. He told delegates they had already become the de facto NHS expert end user leadership community; and were now evolving to become a “social movement” for change and more effective use of IT in healthcare.