CiLN Advisory Panel Update – July 2023 - Health Informatics New Zealand

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CiLN Advisory Panel Update – July 2023

Monday, 10 July 2023

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Update - CiLN Advisory Panel member Greig Russell

CiLN draws members from throughout the health and disability workforce. As we navigate the reforms underway and in support of our hard working staff, we are consolidating our position as an expert resource, advocates for a digitally capable and confident workforce and advisors on the quality and safety of the systems we use. We work in partnership across health and disability agencies and organisations to enable our consumers to receive improved outcomes as a result of the knowledge and experience that exists within our community of practice.

The 2023 Digital Health Leadership Summit
This year, I switched from participant to observer at a table. Instead of ten different conversations, I had the same conversation ten times over, yet each time was very different as the different groups cycled through.

Our table focused on the current and future health workforce requirements needed to deliver the Digital Health aspirations of Te Pae Tata, the National Health Plan that is the first iteration of bringing to life the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) legislation. We used an appreciative inquiry approach to understand the strengths and passions of the current workforce from the leaders in the room. What did we learn?

While everyone was tired, and for some their professional futures were very uncertain, there was no loss of passion for Digital Health or Health Informatics. There is a fundamental shared belief that the role of a Health Informatician is distinct and necessary for the current ambitious health reforms to be successful.

What became obvious was that we all belonged to different professional tribes within the wider Health Informatics culture, including the often-overlooked tribes like those originally from a Digital background, such as the system architects or engineers/developers. Aside from the traditional Medical, Nursing and Allied Health tribes, there were the less common, like the Clinical Coders.

Yet they all had in common the belief in Health Informatics. That being trained or having experience across several domains meant being able to communicate and interpret. They have a shared passion for prioritising the users' needs in supporting care delivery by designing fit-for-purpose products. Not to start with a product and then shoe-horn clinicians into compromising their practice to fit the product with empty words. They want to be innovators, the creators, the change agents and help deliver better, more equitable health outcomes.

Yet, the tribes originally come from different origins and professional cultures. Words are used differently; values, priorities and professional obligations are quite different between us. This can quickly become a situation of “people separated by a common language”. The clinicians struggled to articulate in computer speak what they need. The developers and designers struggled to understand the system requirements needed to build a solution, and the engineers struggled to deliver this safely, sustainably and at scale.

The path from being an enthusiast to being a leader and then on to being a Digital Health specialist in Digital Health is not well articulated or linear. If the professional path is meandering, then the educational infrastructure underpinning the journey is disjointed. Each step for every provider is clear, but only when you are up very close and looking at one step. Passing each step does not lead to the next or even institutional relevance.

Becoming a health informaticist then is a journey from mastery of one’s own profession, before starting to understand the professional cultures of others and how each contributes to the team needed for delivering Digital Health products into the clinical frontline. One needs to be a leader from the outset, a champion to build the spaces for others to flourish.

I was left with the view that our people are our greatest asset, and Aotearoa is blessed with a pool of passionate and competent professionals seeking to deliver the change our health system needs through Health Informatics. They need to train together to get a common language. They need to work together to get a common culture and be recognised by institutions as the amazing workforce it is, made up of multi-talented individuals and local teams.