Over the 15-odd chapters that follow, this handbook gives a detailed insight into what it means to be a chief clinical information officer in today’s NHS. What skills will you need? How can you hone those abilities? Where can you find support as you develop in your role?
Before we get into that level of depth, however, let us start at the very beginning: who are CCIOs; what do they do; and why, where and when do they do it?
Who can hold the CCIO post?
Quite simply: any clinician. While some organisations have appointed chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and/or chief medical information officers (CMIOs), the general model in the UK has been to simply have a chief clinical information officer (CCIO). In this way, it is made explicit that the postholder is representing the interests of all clinical staff groups on informatics projects.
What do CCIOs do?
At the simplest level, CCIOs provide clinical leadership and input on informatics projects. Their presence within an organisation helps ensure that informatics and IT projects are designed with users firmly in mind.
When we have interviewed people in CCIO roles, they have used one word time and again: interpreter. At a practical level, a CCIO is a bridge between clinicians, IT staff, and often service improvement colleagues. As well as representing the interests of clinical colleagues to IT staff, the CCIO is often the one who brings messages from IT to clinicians.
Why is the CCIO role so important?
Read any post-mortem of the National Programme for IT, and one theme quickly emerges as an explanation for its ultimate failure: lack of clinical engagement. The simple reality is that, to be successful, IT projects need to have engaged users.
By representing the clinical perspective, CCIOs can make informatics something which clinicians do rather than something which is done to them. Systems are far more likely to be designed with users’ needs in mind, and to be firmly focused on supporting the delivery of better, safer, more efficient care.
Clearly, informatics and technology is central to the CCIO role. But there is a powerful and persuasive argument that both can be more helpfully seen as part of service transformation and improvement within healthcare. CCIOs can help keep that perspective at the forefront of minds.
Where are CCIOs needed?
The CCIO Network operates on the basis that a CCIO is a desirable appointment in any NHS organisation: provider and commissioner alike. The growth of informatics and technology in healthcare has been exponential and shows no signs of slowing. It follows that clinical leadership of such projects is only going to become more necessary and more important.
When are CCIOs needed?
Clinical input is demonstrably valuable at every step of an informatics or IT project. Having a clinician involved at the outset means an organisation is less likely to procure a solution which does not and will never slot into existing workflows.
Having that same clinician involved when a purchased solution is adapted for use in the organisation means that the minor adaptations which will make a major difference to usability are made in good time. When a CCIO is present for roll-out, users have a peer with whom to share feedback or concerns.
Many organisations appoint CCIOs to offer clinical leadership on large scale projects – most notably, the implementation of electronic patient records. That said, any informatics or IT project is likely to benefit from the input of a CCIO.
There is currently no clear consensus on how much time a CCIO should dedicate to his or her informatics role. Some make the argument that it is a full time position. Others make the point that the value of a CCIO is that he or she remains clinically active and credible, and so suggest that it should be a part time appointment.
Either way, having a ‘formal’ appointment is typically felt to be helpful. One of the express aims of the CCIO Network is to reduce the number of clinicians leading clinical informatics in an informal ‘ad hoc’ way, and to encourage organisations to make substantive appointments.
The following chapters share the expertise, experience and knowledge of those who are among the first to hold formal CCIO or clinical informatics appointments in the UK.
About the author: Claire Read is an experienced freelance writer and editor who specialises in healthcare. She has contributed to EHI (now Digital Health) since 2012, writing much content for the CCIO Leaders Network, and is the editor of the CCIO Network handbook.
Claire can be contacted on Twitter @readthewriter