Digital Health Networks 2018 in review

The past 12 months saw Digital Health Networks continue to strongly develop as the largest and most dynamic community of health IT leaders in the UK.

The Summer Schools 2018 reflected this growth with over 450 delegates and Hack Day participants coming together at Birmingham University for the biggest Summer School yet, including a new future digital leader track

This sets the bar high for the Summer Schools 2019 at Leeds University on 18-19 July, which will again include the hugely popular Summer Schools Hack Day. Hold the date and register your interest now.

In March we ran the two-day Digital Health Leadership Summit in Bristol, bringing together digital health leaders with senior executive colleagues. While in November we partnered with OneHealth London to run a best practice event on information sharing and LHCRE plans across London.

During the course of 2018 we also ran 24 live Best Practice Webinars, in the popular 12.30 -13.30 Friday slot, giving members the chance to brush up on best practice over their lunch.

The vibrant Digital Health Network community, bringing together the CCIO, CIO and CNIO networks, continued to expand linking together more people than ever before for discussions, debate and exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The Networks now provides the home for a growing number of communities of people working in health informatics, including the Caldicott Guardians, Faculty of Clinical Informatics and Future Digital Leaders.

Membership of the networks grew by over 30% during 2018. There were 1870 members at the start of the year, by mid-December membership had hit 2700, including over 1,000 members of the CIO Network and 750 within the CCIO Network. The CNIO network meanwhile more than doubled in size from 87 to 210 members.

The online community is now being supported by networks manager Katerina Loucka.

New partnerships have been forged with key leadership groups including the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, BCS Health and Care, PRSB and INTEROpen. The networks will work with INTEROpen in 2019 to promote interoperability and adoption of open standards across UK health and care.

Partnerships are also being developed with the main regional health IT groups, including the London CIO Council, Northern Yorkshire and Humber Directors of Informatics Forum and North West Informatics Skills Development Network, who we plan to work closely with in 2019.

Another big event will be Digital Health Rewired at London Olympia on March 25-26.

The event will bring together IT leaders and professionals with the latest disruptive digital health innovations.