Dissecting Digital Health — with Harpreet Sood
Dr Harpreet Sood, like many of us, fell into a career in clinical informatics. Now he is dedicating his career to creating opportunities for clinical informaticians to be the next generation of health informatics leaders.
This is the full transcript of the podcast Dissecting Digital Health with Dr Louise Schaper, interview with Dr Harpreet Sood, Associate Chief Clinical Information Officer at NHS England.
Guest: Dr Harpreet Sood, NHS
Host: Dr Louise Schaper, HISA
Tweet Louise @louise_schaper Tweet Harpreet @hssood
Production: This podcast is produced by Ivan Juric
Show Notes
[01:35] Opening remarks by host Dr. Louise Schaper
[01:51] Today’s guest, Harpreet Sood introduces himself, delving into what led him to the medical field, to practice as a doctor, as well as his start in working in policy with the NHS.
[04:23] Louise and Harpreet address the general attitudes around diverting from the traditional path of pursuing medicine to explore the technological and entrepreneurial sides of the field.
[08:42] Louise shifts the conversation to what spurred Harpreet to find his interest in public health and policy. Harpreet shares his journey discovering the enabling nature of technology in healthcare and its potential to improve patient care.
[10:57] Harpreet talks about who works behind the redesign in care, and the exciting trajectory taking place for those seeking careers in health informatics. He shares the collaborations forming that are enabling infrastructure advances.
[13:33] Louise asks Harpreet to share what led him to the Digital Health Academy. Harpreet starts by telling a story of a patient whose case revealed critical information, pushing him to find answers to digitise records.
[17:51]After sharing his anecdote with Louise, Harpreet goes on to describe the specific work and goals of the NHS Digital Health Academy. He reveals some insights about what changes need to happen in the system.
[20:09] Louise and Harpreet discuss the importance of engaging in workforce development as being integral to digital transformation in healthcare, and the exciting trajectory taking place for those seeking careers in health informatics. He shares the collaborations forming that are enabling workforce advances.
[24:58] Harpreet discusses the opportunity for clinicians to be part of the NHS Digital Health Academy.
[28:44] Harpreet describes the goals to form an international network and stir excitement around informatics-enabled care design. Louise commends Harpreet on his passion and the enthusiasm he believes is needed to propel the movement.
[31:10] Louise brings the conversation to a close with prospects of catching up in 12 months’ time to see the Digital Health Academy’s progress.
Full Transcript
Opening remarks by host Dr Louise Schaper
[01:35] Louise: Hello there, listeners. Welcome to this week’s episode of Dissecting Digital Health. I’m at the Royal College of Medicine…no, what is it?
[01:43] Harpreet: Royal Society of Medicine.
[01:45] Louise: Royal Society of Medicine, and my guide here, well, I’ll get him to introduce himself. Guest, who are you?
Today’s guest, Harpreet Sood introduces himself, delving into what led him to the medical field, to practice as a doctor, as well as his start in working in policy with the NHS.
[01:51] Harpreet: Thank you. Hi Louise, and good morning to all. My name is Harpreet Sood, and I work at NHS England, which I can perhaps explain throughout the interview what it does, but I’m also a practicing doctor, so I split my time between two roles doing that, so policy work and some clinical work.
[02:10] Louise: Did you always want to be a doctor?
[02:12] Harpreet: Absolutely. Well, I guess I [Laughter] could say that.
[02:17] Louise: It’s not usually a profession that you fall into, is it?
[02:19] Harpreet: No, you’re right. So, when I started medical school, I was like, “Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?” but I think because I came from a family that were all non-medics, I kind of brought a different mindset to it, which was quite exciting to me, and as time evolved and the people I met, I started realising, actually, being a doctor offers a huge breadth of opportunities, not just practising medicine. It gives you a whole different way of looking at healthcare, and I think because of that, and what I’m doing now, it’s all mostly coming together, which has been good fun.
[02:49] Louise: And, okay, so when you were a student studying medicine, different perspectives were brought into it.
[02:53] Harpreet: Yeah.
[02:54] Louise: Did you have any ideas at the time what type of doctor you might want to be?
[03:00] Harpreet: No. Actually, that’s a good point. So, halfway between my medical school training, we have this option in the U.K., and you may have this in Australia, is that you get the opportunity to go and do another kind of degree for one year, and so my interests were a lot around policy management, so I ended up going to Imperial Business School, Imperial College of Business School, to pursue a Bachelor’s in management and health policy-related work, and there I really got the bug that actually, being a healthcare professional, working frontline, I think bringing that policy management angle into it is great kind of insight, and from there, I started realising, actually, what I’m more interested in is in health systems, I’m more interested in the population health aspect, I’m more interested in the public health aspect of things, and that was at the same time when technology and entrepreneurship was also becoming a bit more mainstream in the UK, and I set up this social enterprise where I was helping other medical students get placements in non-healthcare related settings so that they could get experience in this like I had, and through there, and through networks I developed, etcetera, I started realising, actually, what I want to do as a clinical speciality is be more of a generalist, general medicine, general practice, family medicine, because that gives me the exposure and the insight into what’s happening at a community population level, and bring in the whole digital tech angle that way, which is what I’m hoping to pursue now as I move forward.
Louise and Harpreet address the general attitudes around diverting from the traditional path of pursuing medicine to explore the technological and entrepreneurial sides of the field.
[04:23] Louise: Okay, and did you find at the time when you were thinking about your policy angles, and then technology, what was the sort of feedback that you got from colleagues, mentors? And, the reason I ask is because I know a young doctor who wants to take a similar path to you, and was really torn in two, and when I asked him about it — because he’s so great, I was like, “Of course you can do this, and you can always go back if you change your mind,” and anyway, he actually found that there wasn’t much support from his peer group and mentors, they were sort of saying, “Don’t get off the track, you have to just follow the same path.” So, what was your experience?
[05:00] Harpreet: Well, I think that’s a really valid point, and I’m happy to share my experiences. So, I had, yeah, a similar sort of mindset here. A lot of people felt I was a bit odd [Light laughter], and they didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing, but I think what really did it for me was…so, when I qualified, I continued on my interest in this space and I created some small courses and modules for students that were interested in this space, but during my second year of training — so, what happens is when you qualify here, you do two years of foundational training, and then you have to re-apply — sorry, not reapply, but whether you want to do surgery, pursue a medical career, pursue general practice, but it’s an obvious gap to do other things if you’re interested. So, I actually applied to do a Masters of Public Health, where I went to Boston, so I was at Harvard to do public health there, and again, when I was going through the process, I found it very difficult to get other people to see what I was trying to do, but for some reason, my instinct felt like telling me for me, this was the right thing to do, and I just went for it, and I think that for me was a really unique opportunity, because I ended up meeting very like-minded people who were clinicians, and in the US, it seems like it’s a lot more prominent to be a healthcare professional and pursue a Master’s in public health and policy, and it’s quite a nice combination, whereas here in the UK, especially working at NHS, that concept hasn’t quite grasped on, but, we are seeing more and more people go down that route, because I think people are realising they maybe want to have two or three different dimensions to their clinical careers as well. So, and at the time, like I said, it felt odd, but being out there felt really refreshing, because meeting like-minded people and building that internal confidence I think is really helpful, and that network you get out of the back of that, obviously across the world, validates that what you’re doing is actually…you’re going to hopefully have some impact down the line, and you’re not pursuing a journey that’s not going to lead to anywhere, and you know, coming back here, also now that over the last four or five years I’ve been back, also seeing other colleagues that pursued that, and we’re starting to form these networks. So, I guess
my advice to people in that space, especially students coming through, is go with what you believe your gut tells you to do, and just go for it.
Like you said, there’s no right or wrong answer at this stage, it’s all about exploratory and exploring what different options are, and see where it takes you, and I think that’s the exciting part of what we can do.
[07:21] Louise: Yeah, it is, and isn’t it fantastic, because I studied as an occupational therapist, and I don’t think it’s sold enough to high school students, let alone when you’re doing your degree in university, that
a health degree can actually take you in so many different places, including if you want to continue to practice as a clinician and do other things,
or if you’re actually…just that grounding it gives you to do all sorts of other stuff.
[07:45] Harpreet: Absolutely, and I think that’s the beauty of it, and you know, some keep on doing their frontline work, which is great, but some think they’ve got to a point where they want to pursue other things, and again, there’s no right or wrong answer. It depends on what your preferences are and what you want to pursue, and even when I was doing the Masters of Public Health, there were people from all walks of healthcare profession, not just doctors, it was…we had some physios, nurses, all sorts of other healthcare professions that felt that having this different…this new feather to their hat would give them that unique edge of understanding how systems work, how populations work, which I think we desperately need in order for health systems to become more sustainable, and we’re seeing that here as well, even general practice, that’s family medicine or primary care, is really finding it difficult to recruit more people, because some of what they offer is not necessarily responding to the needs of what people want, but also where healthcare is moving. So, it’s quite interesting to get the balance right.
Louise shifts the conversation to what spurred Harpreet to find his interest in public health and policy. Harpreet shares his journey discovering the enabling nature of technology in healthcare and its potential to improve patient care.
[08:42] Louise: And so, your interest in public health and policy and sustainability, was it those issues that graduated you, or peaked your interest in informatics and digital health, or did that come about somewhere different?
[08:56] Harpreet: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think…so, when I was in Boston, I think, again, really validated my belief in this, and so I was working at Brigham Women’s Hospital, and they had just procured the whole big EPIC system out there with health IT, but prior to that, I did some research with some of the kind of the forefather thinkers of this, basically, Professor David Bates, and Professor Aziz Sheikh from Edinburgh was out there as well, and I managed to be fortunate enough to work in their research teams, and one of the projects I did there was a big research project, and it was entitled, “Leveraging Health IT to Achieve the Triple Aims of Healthcare Reform,” and the US has gone through a massive — well, a lot of money has been spent on the whole adoption of electronic health records, but doing this piece of research, it kind of made me realise, and kind of strengthened that belief that actually,
health IT, it’s not a solution, but it’s an enabler, and I think that’s that mindset that we need to go with,
in that what we’ve been doing has been great over the last decades, but now, with technology improved so much, and mindsets improved so much, that healthcare essentially is an information business, and the more information you have, the better the decisions you can make, but ultimately, you need the infrastructure to help you make that decision, and I think with technology improving and people realising that how we now redesign our care and think about doing things differently, enabled with technology in the right platforms and the right information at the right time, we can actually improve the outcomes for our patients, but also prove the working of our frontline workforce, which we often forget about, and you know, usable and user-centric design has never been a forefront of these technology companies, but again, we’re seeing that more and more, and
we can even make it more influential if we get frontline clinicians and frontline workers to be part of this journey, and that means giving them new tools, giving them new skills, giving them new knowledge to challenge some of these industry companies, but also re-design their care pathways and their processes to what makes sense to them, which I think is really important.
Harpreet talks about who works behind the redesign in care, and the exciting trajectory taking place for those seeking careers in health informatics. He shares the collaborations forming that are enabling infrastructure advances.
Harpreet: If I may, I’ll give you an example of where I work locally at a hospital site. They’re going through their own kind of transformation with a technology platform, so EHR, electronic health record system being implemented, and so I was at a meeting with them recently. They were doing this big presentation with all the healthcare professionals out there, and what struck me most was that what they were doing was essentially just taking all the existing processes and just putting them digital — they were just digitising them, and I was just like, “Guys, let’s hold back a second here and see why we’re doing what we’re doing.” How do you engage us more to think about how can we do things differently?
If I may, I’ll give you an example to where I work locally at a hospital site. They’re going through their own kind of transformation with a technology platform, so EHR, electronic health record system being implemented, and so I was at a meeting with them recently. They were doing this big presentation with all the healthcare professionals out there, and what struck me most was that what they were doing was essentially just taking all the existing processes and just putting them digital — they were just digitising them, and I was just like, “Guys, let’s hold back a second here and see why we’re doing what we’re doing.” How do you engage us more to think about how can we do things differently?
[11:33] Louise: Who was leading that project? Was it more led from IT than clinicians?
[11:40] Harpreet: Well, so this is the interesting thing, and I won’t name any names [Light laughter], but it was, essentially, led…well, people doing the presentations were the IT professionals. Now, I think this has to be a joint effort with frontline workforce but also IT people, because they’re all bringing different skill sets, right? But, the challenge we had — a lot of this was about culture change and mindset change, but
what I felt made it a bit more challenging for them was that all the questions that the clinicians had, i.e. around prescribing or discharge summaries or getting information from other databases, the IT managers unfortunately couldn’t answer them, because they weren’t part of that kind of process, right?
So, what I sensed there was that was a way, well, a classic way, of how you then build a bit of resistance when you come to change management, because we’re not talking the same language, right? And so, there were certain prominent clinicians who are involved with this technology implementation at the place I’m working, but they weren’t there, right, and so that’s an example of visibility and that kind of leadership that we have to offer needs to be present, because when these challenging questions are asked by the senior clinicians, you need to be present to be helping them to convince them that what we’re doing is the right thing, but you’re part of that journey, and we’ll work together. If people are asking you questions when you’re going through this transformation journey and you can’t answer them or it shows that you haven’t thought about them, people will say, “Yep, these guys aren’t ready. I don’t want to be part of this,” and so these are the kind of things that you can only do, again, if you have a strong understanding of why what you’re doing is obviously right, and you’ve got a vision, but ultimately, this is about behavior change and getting people to think differently, so it requires that culture change, continuously engaging them, continuously selling the narrative, and really winning the hearts and minds of your frontline workforce, which is so essential for its successful implementation.
Louise asks Harpreet to share what led him to the Digital Health Academy. Harpreet starts by telling a story of a patient whose case revealed critical information, pushing him to find answers to digitise records.
[13:33] Louise: Yeah, it is, and you mentioned workforce, and of course, I do know that you’re involved in something called the Digital Health Academy.
[13:39] Harpreet: Yes.
[13:40] Louise: Do you want to tell us not just about the Academy, but first, how did you get involved in that? And then, you can let us know what it’s all about.
[13:47] Harpreet: Yeah, sure. So, this really came from two things. One was my personal experience that really, really struck me. So, I was…about this time last year, actually, like I said, I spend my time being a clinician, but also doing policy work.
[14:02] Louise: Sorry, how many hours of work do you do…
[14:04] Harpreet: So, I do 50/50 at the moment. So, when I was doing my on-call about this time last year, it was a weekend shift and I was on-call, and in the early hours, we had this elderly care lady who came in, and she was brought in by her carers, she was drowsy, unwell, so we worked — we did her bloods, we did her chest x-rays, etcetera, and tried to take as much information as possible, and so it was quite evident at the time that she had this chest infection, so we start her on the antibiotics, as we would do, and put in some IV fluids etcetera, and so about an hour later, right, I got a call from the nurse saying her blood pressure is dropping, and she’s starting to develop this rash, and I was like, “Okay, I better come straight away.” When I got there, she had a bit of lip swelling, more rash, and it became evident that she was allergic to this particular antibiotic. Now, we didn’t know she was allergic to this antibiotic, because we didn’t have that information with us and we couldn’t get that information with us, because it was a weekend, there’s only emergency treatments available, etcetera.
[15:03] Louise: Was there information on paper?
[15:06] Harpreet: No, because she was brought in from her home — from her own home, and so we couldn’t get access to any records, and didn’t have the GP records either. And so, what really struck me at the time was this lady suffered — she suffered because we didn’t have the right information at the right time, and frankly speaking, in today’s age, where we are, this is unacceptable, right? If this was anyone’s relative, anyone’s family member, it would not be acceptable. But, what really made me also struggle was that I didn’t know what to do about that, how to go about making that change, right, and research has shown that on this front,
when it comes to transformation with technology informatics, few people know how to make that change.
But, what is even more striking is that even fewer people have the capability to make that change, right? And, what was also quite interesting at the time was with my policy hat on, I was involved with something called the Wachter Review, which was essentially a review we commissioned, secretary state in England, and the NHS England Leadership commissioned Professor Robert Wachter from the University of California, San Francisco, to really come in and help us think through how do we move into this new era of digitisation across secondary care in the NHS, and moving away from the era of national program privacy, and this new era with new investment coming in and new technology coming in, how do we actually make the most of it in our care line.
[16:24] Louise: Was that 2016?
[16:26] Harpreet: That was 2016, yeah, and that was, like I said, the focus was around secondary care, but with inevitable spillovers into primary, community, mental health, and the reason we focused on secondary care was because we really don’t have that adoption uptake in secondary care. I mean, primary care is virtually 100% digitised in this country, but again, the integration is not there, and we’re still not sharing records as we should be.
[16:47] Louise: There’s a doctor in Australia that likes to say — because most of our GPs are also online, and he likes to say they’re on a super highway to nowhere [Light laughter].
[17:04] Harpreet: Exactly. So, like I said, my personal experience with this patient was a classic example of that. If I had had the information, we would have known she was allergic to this antibiotic, we wouldn’t have given it to her. Anyway, the point is, when we were doing this review, when we were doing our interviews and we were doing our field visits, we were doing our observations etcetera, it became very evident that I wasn’t alone in this. There were other professionals across the space who felt like they didn’t have the skillsets or the capabilities or the leadership training necessary to be able to do what we were aiming to do, and so…and what Professor Wachter, we quite clearly put in our review, was that
one of the key things missing in this country, in the NHS, is that we have a lack of cadre professionals, namely the Chief Clinical Information Officers, but also some of the Chief Information Officers, who have the necessary capability and the skillsets and the knowledge to drive this transformation journey in technology informatics.
After sharing his anecdote with Louise, Harpreet goes on to describe the specific work and goals of the NHS Digital Health Academy. He reveals some insights about what changes need to happen in the system. Louise and Harpreet discuss the importance of engaging in workforce development as being integral to digital transformation in healthcare.
So, when we put this recommendation out, we didn’t always necessarily think about how could make this happen, and what would we have to do. So, post-review and post-recommendations, when we were ideating back at NHS how to make this happen, one of the things that we thought about, and I came up with, was why don’t we create this thing called the NHS Digital Academy, and what they’d essentially do is that we want to develop a unique kind of flagship program that’s been created by subject matter experts, by all the national, international conference frameworks out there, but also has had input from the frontline workforce, so the current crop of CCIOs, and the current crop of CCOs, all the CIOs, sorry, all inputs to create this program that can help accelerate development of the future kind of cadre professionals coming through, the leaders that want to do that career space, but also wants to help build the knowledge gap of the current crop — those individuals that are in the current space who feel like they’re missing something, how do we bring them together? And hence, the idea came about through the over the last six months, say, we’ve developed this program which has been validated, and we’re hopefully going to get this validated by the new faculty of clinical informatics that’s been developed, but also the Federation of Informatics Professionals for the non-clinicians who will accredit the program, and we hope to put 300 people through this program over the next three and a half years, who we hope will then have the right skills and the right knowledge to be able to conduct this. We see this as a starting point, right, this program is a starting point, but it’s enough to show the system that we’re serious about what we’re doing and we are not only investing in technology development and platforms, but we are equally investing in our workforce development, because what we can’t do is leave our workforce behind, right? We can’t assume people know how to do this, and we can’t not give them any new skills or tools to be able to do what we’re asking them to do.
[19:39] Louise: And that’s actually…even though that’s common sense, that’s actually also a higher level of sophistication in terms of the way the workforce is actually seen as being very integral as a digital transformation happens in healthcare, which actually hasn’t happened before in most countries, including where I’m from.
[19:57] Harpreet: Yeah, exactly.
[19:58] Louise: In NPfIT days as well, it’s always…the money is always spent on infrastructure — technology infrastructure, not the people infrastructure.
[20:05] Harpreet: Yeah, absolutely.
[20:07] Louise: I’m completely jealous of your program.
Louise and Harpreet discuss the importance of engaging in workforce development as being integral to digital transformation in healthcare, and the exciting trajectory taking place for those seeking careers in health informatics. He shares the collaborations forming that are enabling workforce advances.
[20:09] Harpreet: And so, on that note, actually, so when we were doing the review, one of the things we looked at was why did NPfIT not get as successful as it should have done, and one of the key things that came out of that was because of the timeline and the mass we had, one of the things we didn’t do well was engage our workforce, especially our clinicians, we didn’t give them anything new or skills or tools, right, and if you look at some of the work Don Detmer has done in the US, and some of the other figureheads of this movement in America, one of the things they quite clearly define is that informatics equals people first, then information, then technology, right, and so if we’re thinking about that, and we’re thinking about that equation, what is that we’re doing with our people, right? So, not only does that mean to give them more authority and empower them to do this, but also give them new skills and new tools, right? So, look, like I said, we see this as a starting point. We hope the program will evolve, build, and as we go along, new things will come along and we’ll build on it, but
it’s a starting point and it’s also a point for us to professionalise work, showcase these people, recognise their efforts, get that momentum going, build that critical mass, so we can really drive this agenda forward, and we’re really excited about that.
We want to get both national and international faculty members, really get people saying that we’re going to give you this to make you do what you have to do in terms of your care redesign, and the great thing is that we’re going to fund it for them for the next three and a half years. So, this is a fully-funded program, and we think that for the first time, from a national level, potentially international level, that we have created a program like this that will allow people to develop careers in this, and it’s also letting us take informatics, that in this country is often focused on the research side, into a more applied, hands-on specialty, which I think is also a very exciting transition we’re seeing.
[21:51] Louise: Yeah, and at the moment, you’re actually…well, not just you, but there’s a team of you, I believe, actually looking at who’s going to deliver these, and so those delivery partners, are they going to — obviously, you can’t say a lot about it, but just looking at the process work. So, are they going to be generating the content as well as actually providing the infrastructure for the training?
[22:12] Harpreet: Yeah, absolutely. So, what we’ve done is we, like I said, through our subject manner experts, through our steering group committee members, and also the national and international frameworks we use around competency, we’ve created a framework of our program with six different themes within that, obviously the core being leadership change management, but also things like understanding consumer informatics, understanding user-centric design, understanding data analytics, how do we use data to change the dimensions, interventions, and improvements, things like technology methodologies, implementation journeys, understanding health technology systems, and just information systems in general. So, we have quite a robust kind of framework we’ve developed over the last few months, and so what we’ve said to the delivery partner is that’s a starting point for you, but yes, we will help build some of that content through our networks, through our national agencies, but we expect that a lot of it will come from our delivery partner as well, because essentially what we’re…we don’t think all the stuff that we’ve put out there is necessary, all of it is needed, but it’s more about coordinating in a way that people can then go through it.
[22:18] Louise: Keeping that professional initiative, and the fact that it’s also being funded, and not in insignificant amount. The fact that it’s being funded by the NHS, then you know it’s got the highest level of support.
[23:31] Harpreet: Exactly. And, again, which I can’t really go into too much detail at the moment, but we can touch base again, is that some of the bids we’ve seen aren’t just single institutions, but they’re a consortium, and I think that’s what’s really exciting about it, is that a lot of people have gone out and made these collaborations with some of our top universities, some of our big professional service organisations — I mean, it’s a mixture of kind of really good bids coming in, which makes it quite exciting for us, because I guess one of the unintended consequences is that people have already formed collaborations, and so that allows us to kind of build that infrastructure that we’re looking to build on the back of this, so we’re really excited by the opportunity on the back of this, and we hope to pursue this further. At least, look, for us, and again, my own personal experience, but also the people that we spoke to, is that we’re now starting to find this clear kind of route, which is essentially needed, right? If someone was to be in the space, wants to develop a career in the space, what is that kind of route or the career training path or the path in general that someone can pursue? At the moment, there’s a lot of different things, a lot of the people we’ve spoken to in the past have developed piecemeal careers by doing certain things, but this is, I think, the first time we believe it’s come together in a succinct way that will allow people to at least say, “Okay, this is a route that I could take,” but also see on the back of it, we have lots of other routes come in that are clearly defined and start giving the recognition, the professional accreditation, and desperately needed funding in this space that we hope people will start putting forth.
Harpreet discusses the opportunity for clinicians to be part of the NHS Digital Health Academy.
[24:58] Louise: And, at this stage, when do you expect to take your first intake of students?
[25:01] Harpreet: Yeah, so we’re hoping, and the plan is for end of September, early October is our first cohort that will start. We’re doing up to 50 per cohort because we want them to form that network and that cohesiveness amongst them. The first cohort, the priority will be given to our global digital exam plus sites, so we’ve got 22 of those, and then we will then open up to the wider health and care system very soon after that.
[25:23] Louise: Okay. So, will people like self-nominate to be selected?
[25:26] Harpreet: Yeah, so the way it works would be that we will have a recruitment process, but initially, it will be through nominations and through exemplars, but look, the way the delivery program — the way the program is going to be delivered, the vast majority of it is going to be delivered online, so through webinars, virtual seminars, etcetera. There will be two one-week residential sites, so one at the start, one at the end where they’ll all come together as a group, meeting each other, do networking and all that kind of group learning that makes the program successful. But, a really important part of it will be that we expect candidates to bring a project. We want them to bring a project from their local site to say, “We’re going to implement this in our local site,” whether it’s a new tool they want to do, or an informatics project they want to do, or part of a core priority of the technology limitation they’re doing at their site, and the purpose of that, so not only does it benefit the organisation and some of the work that they’ve prioritised is happening, but the candidates are learning by doing. Rather than sitting in lecture halls and learning by theory, this is about hands-on doing — learning by doing, and I think that’s really going to be important. So, yeah, initially, people get nominated through their organisations. We would expect their line managers or directors to sign this off, and/or also get endorsement from their senior leadership, i.e. the CIO or the board to show that they are committed in this individual, because like I said, this about raising the profile of these individuals who are doing this work, and it’s tough. We have some real-life practitioners or CIOs and CCOs who are doing this work on our steering group, and we hear from them all the time that this is an unglamorous, tough work, right? And, we need to get these people and recognise them, and say look, all of the things that are happening in the organisation is because of these people. So, not only are they learning, but they’re also helping you achieve your vision, and so we want to showcase them and we want to recognise them, and so getting that endorsement and that sponsorship for their senior leaders, but also their line of direct managers to give them the time to learn and do is going to be really important.
[27:28] Louise: Alright. That’s so great. When is going to be the first graduation ceremony?
[27:31] Harpreet: Well, so, look, it’s a 12-month program, like I said, part-time building this, so 12-months from September, we’ll get you back.
[27:37] Louise: So, September 2018.
[27:38] Harpreet: Yeah, absolutely. But, that’s really important, and I’m glad you touched upon that, because we want to be doing an annual event where we bring these people together, so we learn from the projects they’ve done, what have they done, what challenges they faced, what successes they faced, because that is one way of sharing knowledge and distributing it and developing this critical mass, so that people, when they go back to organisations, they know who they can reach out to share their insight. And, I often feel,
my personal belief is that education and training is one way of forming these really strong networks amongst them, so they all learn and do together.
[28:09] Louise: Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. And, because the other thing is, by taking that approach and that practical, bring these problems from where you work, and take that knowledge back, you’ll be able to generate, actually, a lot of content. So, you’re not just helping the individual go, “Oh, I learned stuff and I met some great people, and it’s been helpful for me and professional recognition,” but also, you’ll probably be able to…I imagine there’s a whole bunch of content, and leadership-type content that can come out of what, actually, people bring to the course as well, so it’s not just a one-way education piece.
[28:40] Harpreet: It’s both. Yeah, I agree.
[28:42] Louise: Yeah, alright. That’s really very exciting.
Harpreet describes the goals to form an international network and stir excitement around informatics-enabled care design. Louise commends Harpreet on his passion and the enthusiasm he believes is needed to propel the movement.
[28:44] Harpreet: Yeah, so like I said, we will evolve as we go along, and we hope…and some of the interesting things happening now is we’ve gotten some international interest from people saying, “Well, can we maybe put some of our own people through here?” or “Can you come and help us do this here?” But, we’re very excited about that, because look, I think all health systems are on that same trajectory, right? We’re all having similar issues, and we need to think about how do we actually raise the profile of this work, this kind of work, whether it’s informatics-enabled care redesign, or just health, whatever you want to call it, we’re all headed the same way, and we need to think about how do we form these collaborations so that we can maybe send some fellows — some candidates from here to elsewhere and bring some other people here, because then we can start forming this international network, which I think is fascinating and very exciting, and I would certainly love to be part of as I go through my training and career, saying, I want to be part of this, and that’s what we’re going to do.
[29:35] Louise: It’s so good, and I have to just explain what’s happening, because it’s in front of us, and you can’t see, Harpreet has got like the biggest smile on his face, just loving the Digital Health Academy [Light laughter]. No, it’s great!
[29:50] Harpreet: [Light laughter] Look, it’s fun, because I’ve been to a couple of programs, like hybrid-exec programs that have been created, and the value in all of these is getting these like-minded people together in a room, I think is just fascinating, and I think if we can do that at scale across the NHS, it just really would…at the moment, it’s tough out there, there’s no doubt about that. I work on the frontline and I know how tough it is out there, but what we need to do is provide a bit of excitement, say that there is hope, and this is what it is, and what we need to do is provide that attractive proposition for these people to stay here, right? We need to raise our game, we need to raise our standards. I was at this conference, actually at Yale this week, and there was a lot of sentiment going around: “Okay, this is great, but when I go back to my organisation, I just get put in a corner again.” Now, we need to change that, right, and
the only way we can do this is three things. We can professionalise this, like we’re doing, second is that we demonstrate we’re organised and we really become organised, and the third is we demonstrate why this is an attractive proposition, and the only way we can do that is we come together collectively and raise our game,
which is what we want to do with this kind of academy program, and we’re hoping other things come out of it. But, that’s one way of doing that, right, and the more organised we are, the more professionalised we are, the more attractive we make it, we will get those people with the right attributes into this, which I think is fundamentally important.
Louise brings the conversation to a close with prospects of catching up in 12 months’ time to see the Digital Health Academy’s progress.
[31:10] Louise: What a great place to end the interview. [Light laughter] Thank you so much for your time.
[31:13] Harpreet: No problem.
[31:15] Louise: I really appreciate it, and yes, I will come back in 12-months’ time to talk again about the success of the Digital Health Academy.
[31:18] Harpreet: Absolutely. That would be great, and we would love to do that, and we would love to hear about the progress you guys are making, because I think again, there’s huge amounts of alignment there that we can share, learn, and work together. Cool, thanks Louise.
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