Digital Health Intelligence launched

The founders of EHealth Media Limited, publishers of eHealth Insider, have established a new company to better serve those communities leading the fast changing world of health IT.

Digital Health Intelligence Limited has been launched as the new home for EHI News, EHI Intelligence and EHI Networks. Together, the three businesses will be developed to provide a dedicated, new home for UK digital health.

Jon Hoeksma, co-founder of EHealth Media and editor of EHI, becomes the chief executive of DHI.

Hoeksma said the new business will take a wider, more participatory view of digital health, including patients and a wide range of NHS professionals and suppliers.

“EHI News will continue to report on UK health IT, as we have done for 13 years, but we will also expand coverage of the disruptive technologies that are set to radically re-shape the business, delivery and very idea of health and social care,” he said 

A central aim of DHI will be to grow a range of opportunities for readers to share best practice and collaborate with each other. 

“We want to create compelling reasons for people to participate in a network of digital health communities focused on sharing best practice,” Hoeksma said.

The new business was created in November following the sale of EHI Live and EHI Awards to Informa Plc.

EHM’s other co-founder, Linda Davidson, whose role was mainly focused on EHI Live and the EHI Awards, will act an independent consultant for Informa for the first half of 2015.  She remains a shareholder and non-executive director of DHI.

“EHI Live and EHI Awards are great events, which will thrive in the hands of Informa. DHI will continue to strongly support the show, and will deliver our very successful CCIO Leaders Network and Health CIO Network conferences within it,” said Hoeksma.

“Selling the events will enable the new DHI business to have a really clear strategic focus on news, intelligence and networks and innovate on the fantastic foundations we have built over the past decade.”

DHI brings together the most exciting and innovative parts of EHI portfolio, providing the foundations for developing an integrated service, offering members news, insight, data, benchmarking tools, best practice resources, community and collaboration tools.

The DHI family covers:

EHI News – the leading independent UK news service covering digital health
EHI Intelligence – the most accurate and comprehensive source of data, market insight and analysis on UK health IT 
Clinical Digital Maturity Index – the only UK-specific suite of clinical digital maturity benchmarks
Chief Clinical Information Officer Leaders Network – the professional best practice and collaboration community for clinical information leaders
Health Chief Information Officer Network – the professional best practice and collaboration community for health IT leaders.

DHI will continue to grow the highly successful CCIO and Health CIO residential Summer Schools, together with a nationwide series of regional best practice events and an expanded annual programme of best practice webinars.

NHS England has invested in accelerating the development of the CCIO Leaders Network and licenses the CDMI on behalf of the NHS. 

CDMI already provides the only longitudinal measure of hospitals’ progress on digital maturity, enabling trusts to benchmark and track their progress. New CDMI models are now being built for mental health and community trusts.

“By integrating news, intelligence and networks we now aim to develop DHI as the ‘home of digital health’,” said Hoeksma.  “We hope DHI will become something people will want to participate in order to understand, share best practice and innovate 365 days a year.”

Hoeksma concluded: “The real test will be whether we can bring together DHI services in ways that will help our readers and members working in the NHS and supplier community to deliver on the potential of Digital Health for the benefit of patients.”