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Leadership - reflections from a recent project

  The need With increasing sustainability challenges of rising care needs for chronic conditions in an aging population the need has never been greater for the NHS to harness technology to support new models of care delivery, avoid unwarranted variation by providing better access to information at points of care, and to embed evidence based digital decision support tools to enable population health management (NHS, 2017) ,   (NHS, 2019) . Though these ambitions are firmly supported by the findings, principles, and recommendations highlighted by Professor Robert Wachter (Department of Health and Social Care, 2016) , addressing the challenges relating to financial investment and the need for thoughtful stakeholder engagement are key to ensuring successful digital transformation   (Honeyman, 2016) . Furthermore; there are workforce challenges which arise from the impact digital solutions bring to the roles and functions of clinicians (Topol, 2019) . These challenges and opportunities th
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Flourishing relationships - finance staff and clinicians - the challenges and solutions

This paper e xamines the challenges that need to be overcome for the relationship between finance staff and clinicians to flourish and critically appraises the techniques that can be used. Challenges that need to be overcome 1.       A strategic disconnect Cost and quality improvement (QI) programmes are often viewed as separate if not competing entities rather than strategies of equal priority and complimentary intent within NHS organisations. The hypothesis that ‘quality improvement reduces costs’ remains debatable, ‘there is some evidence to show that quality improvements can both improve quality and release resources’ (Neath, et al., 2012, p. 1) ; and though some cases are effective and report savings; the evidence is weak (Llewellyn, et al., 2016) . These initiatives carry costs which may exceed savings, and this is complicated by cost-benefits being spread over time and between stakeholders. There are also several contextual factors (e.g. contractual arrangements) that infl

How my journey with informatics began - the first four years

  “Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” – Mahatma Gandhi Our journey started at a meeting chaired by the Deputy Director of Operations (DDOP) for Unscheduled Care on 9 th October 2014; whilst discussing (and mildly put – disagreeing on) the time patients waited for clinical assessments on our 36 bedded Acute Medical Unit (AMU) at Blackpool Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This discussion (and ensuing difference of opinions) demonstrated that the group felt passionately about patients being seen in a timely manner and this highlighted the need to measure key quality indicators on AMU.  “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein From time immemorial, our AMU used a traditional white board - a standard grid board with combinations of magnets/symbols, coloured handwritten patient details and squiggles by clinicians representing clinical reviews being completed. The white board was augmented by an A3