Digital Health and BCS partner on developing current and future digital leaders

Digital Health announces today it will be working with BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, on a series of events designed to further develop and raise the profile of health informatics leaders and digital health as an emerging profession and discipline.

The new collaboration offers professional development opportunities, delivered through accredited training and development programmes by BCS, for Digital Health’s 43,000 monthly readers, regular event attendees and its 2,000-plus network members.

Digital Health and BCS are partnering on the development of a new ‘Future Digital Leaders’ Summer School for aspiring future digital leaders, working together with the NHS Graduate Trainee Informatics Programme delivered by University of Manchester and University College London (UCL).

Work has also begun on the development of a new Academic Track at the 2018 Digital Health Summer Schools. This will highlight some of the best developments in UK clinical informatics research, with a particular focus on benefits realisation.

BCS, as the leading chartered body for IT and computing and a proud founding member of the new federation for informatics professional (FEDIP), is intrinsically placed to support the health informatics community in establishing best practice standards and unlocking the massive potential in digital health and social care.

The partnership launches ahead of the Digital Health Leadership Summit, which is being held on 15-16 March at the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, day one of which will be chaired by BCS Health and Care chair, Andy Kinnear.

Kinnear said: “It’s great to see both BCS and Digital Health strengthen their ties to support the growing needs of NHS IT professionals. Recently, we’ve made significant progress in promoting the role of professionalising IT and clinical informatics personnel across the NHS, however this latest collaboration will take an established development programme on to another level. I look forward to starting this process at the ever-popular Leadership Summit next week.”

Jonathan Jeffery, policy programmes Manager at BCS, said: “As the relationship between digital healthcare and the public evolves, it’s increasingly important for informaticians to maintain professional standards and to be recognised for doing so.

“This partnership and the platform from Digital Health’s events will provide opportunities for the community to coalesce around these professional and technical issues and work together in delivering better technology enabled health and care” added Jeffery.

Digital Health is the UK’s authoritative, independent B2B news, research and events specialist, focused on the fast-evolving field of health IT.

Digital Health Networks, the professional communities hosted by Digital Health, form the UK’s largest health IT leadership network of NHS CCIOs, CIOs and Nursing and AHP digital leaders, focused on collaboration and best practice exchange. The 2,000+ member-directed networks, which focus on supporting local NHS digital leaders to collaborate, are delivered though an online community platform, best practice webinars, regional events and a prestigious annual Summer School and Leadership Summit.

Jon Hoeksma, Chief Executive at Digital Health, said: “For the NHS to secure the full potential benefits of digitisation for patients critically depends on significantly accelerating the development of current and future digital leaders. Digital Health is proud to be able to play a part in this movement.”

“Our new partnership with BCS is an absolutely key step in further developing and supporting current CCIOs, CIOs and CNIOs and future digital leaders through compelling networking, events and professional development resources,” added Hoeksma.