Nominate your champion of the year

Nominations have opened for the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year; a special category of the EHI Awards 2012 in association with BT that will be decided by you – the readers of eHealth Insider.

The award, which is sponsored by CSC, was created to recognise an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to IT in their organisation, or who has worked tirelessly to promote healthcare IT through education, professional or national organisations.

Jon Hoeksma, editor of EHI, said: "The announcement of the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year is always one of the highlights of the EHI Awards; but competition for the title has become increasingly fierce.

“For the past two years, we have had to run two rounds of voting, with the nominees who make it through to the second round joining us at the awards dinner in October. I am sure that competition will be just as keen this year.

“We very much look forward to seeing the nominations, which always reflect the superb – but often unrecognised – work that is going on in healthcare IT around the country.”

If you would like to nominate somebody for this award, then please send an email to Lauren Hoodless, naming your champion and saying why they should win.

Support your email with a 300 word statement, outlining their contribution and giving specific examples of their work.

What makes them special? How have they gone above and beyond what might have been expected of them? What obstacles and challenges have they overcome? What innovation or change have they achieved?

The deadline for nominations is 20 July. After that, we will approach nominees to see if they are happy for their names to go forward. Then, voting will start in August.

The winner will be unveiled at this year’s awards dinner, which will be at the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London, on 4 October.

The first winner of the champion’s award was Mike Bainbridge, clinical architect of NHS Connecting for Health. 

Other winners have included Sue Rushbrook, head of systems and network services at York Hospitals NHS Trust, and Andy Inniss, a control training supervisor in South Western Ambulance NHS Trust’s control room in Exeter.

They have been followed by John Thornbury, ICT director at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, and James Norman, IT director of Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, who will be a judge in this year’s awards.

To enter an award category, reserve a table, or for more information on the EHI Awards 2012 in association with BT please visit the Awards section of the website.