October 2015 
Griffiths announced as UK EHI Awards Healthcare IT Champion of the Year 
CIO for Health Andrew Griffiths picks up award for national IT developments achieved in Wales
 
Chief Information Officer for Health at NHS Wales Informatics Service, Andrew Griffiths has won a UK award honouring excellence in the field of healthcare IT.
  
"It's a win for NHS Wales as a whole," Andrew said after recieving the award for EHI's Healthcare IT Champion of the Year. "Receiving the award signifies the efforts of our highly skilled IT staff and all the other staff in the Welsh health service that are working together to enable technology services for better patient care."
  
Andrew was among five finalists nominated for the award that is decided through popular vote by the readers of Digital Health News.
  
Read more about this year's other EHI Award winners on the Digital Health News website.
New Safe Systems approach launched
Wales Informatics Assurance Board to oversee health IT systems
  

A new board has been created to assure that national systems and IT in Welsh health services are safe to be released into a clinical environment.

 
The Wales Informatics Assurance Board brings together the work of the National Architecture Design Board and the Patient Safety Approval Board, and consists of representatives from across the health service and include patients and their representatives.

 
The purpose of the board will be to ensure a proportional and straight forward approach to making sure that new IT services meet safety requirements in a number of areas such as clinical, security, technical and information sharing.  

 
The new board will be supported by a Wales Informatics Assurance Group who will work with project managers and developers in the Informatics Service to ensure an appropriate level of assurance.

GP Information Portal launched
New portal will provide statistical data
  
A Primary Care Information Portal has been developed to support the work of GPs.
 
Health boards will be able to analyse information relating to topics such as prevalence of diseases and uptake of immunisations. The portal will be particularly useful to GP Clusters (groups of practices working together to serve populations of between 30,000 and 50,000 patients)
 
The portal presents easy-to-interpret graphs and gives statistical comparisons between different cluster areas, allowing managers to make better informed decisions on where to target resources.
 
Access to the portal is currently through controlled accounts, and at present time it is aimed at Directors of Primary Care and Cluster Leads. The portal will be developed over forthcoming months, and as more information is included a wider audience will be encouraged to use the portal.
Green machines
   
Giving old equipment new meaning
   
Computer equipment is a mixture of plastics, hazardous metals, valuable components and circuitry. And like all machines, it has a limited lifespan, so, NHS Wales Informatics Service has teamed up with Keep Wales Tidy to recycle or dispose of our redundant IT equipment.
  
We've helped the charity raise nearly £17,000 in four years as our old IT is reprocessed, recycled, or upgraded and re-sold. The money collected is then used to support environmental work in local communities.

"We've been recycling our IT equipment with Keep Wales Tidy for a number of years and they have always provided a secure and efficient service," says NHS Wales Informatics Service's Head of Client Services, Ian Cox. "It's great to see how the money raised is being used to support such a wide range of environmental projects."
  
But there's more to be done. We're taking steps to meet and exceed environmental and sustainability targets in the near future, for example recycling more than half of our total waste.
 
New Director of ICT appointed
 
Carwyn Lloyd-Jones will lead Information and Communications
Technology
  
The NHS Wales Informatics Service is pleased to announce the appointment of Carwyn Lloyd-Jones as Director of Information and Communications Technology. 
 
He succeeds Operational Services Director, Andrew MacBean, who retired last month.
 
Carwyn has extensive experience in healthcare technology, and has led on infrastructure design for NHS Wales since 2006.
 
In recent years his role as Head of Infrastructure Services and Design within the NHS Wales Informatics Service has encompassed an operational function covering networks, data centres, development and support of national business applications and the hosting of national clinical systems.
 
Upgrade Completed
 
A new generation of technology for all GP practices in Wales
  
All 455 GP practices in Wales are now running next-generation computer systems and software, following a multi-million pound investment in primary care technology.  
 
The NHS Wales Informatics Service two-year upgrading process finished on schedule providing practices with 8700 new computers, 4800 new printers, improved local networks and upgraded bandwidth.
 
The upgrade is supported by a new IT support service for GP practices making it easier for technical issues to be resolved.
 
The new technology supports care closer to home and makes more digital services available.
 
 
Informatics in Numbers
 
2,001,392
  
More than two million electronic referrals have now been sent by the Welsh Clinical Communication Gateway since its introduction in November 2009 (2,001,392 as of 2nd October to be precise). 
  
The Gateway is used to send tens of thousands of electronic referrals every month in Wales, replacing paper referral letters with secure clinical messages.
  
Informatics@Events
  
Want to find out more about a career in Health Informatics?
 
Come and speak to us to find out more at the @nhswalescareers
stand during @SkillsCymru
on 21st and 22nd October.
  
  
   
 
As part of a series of British Computer Society events we will be showcasing how the use of technology is supporting better and more efficient care for patients and the citizens of Wales; how we are setting the standards for Health Informatics professional development and providing the opportunity to discuss technology in NHS Wales.
  
The first event will be from 6pm to 7.30pm on 10th November at our Cardiff office and focuses on an overview of the Informatics Service, the Patient Journey and raising the profile and status of the health informatics profession.
  
For more information contact nwisenquiries@wales.nhs.uk


  
  
  
  
Follow Us

Like us on Facebook  Follow us on Twitter

Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.