All transformation is digital transformation
By Natalie Hayes. As seen in Nursing Times Magazine
The world around us is becoming ever more digital, and the NHS is not immune to that. The last 18 months has taught us more than ever that our world's infrastructure relies on digital solutions.
We know that in nursing, digital advances have allowed us to be more efficient, safer and evidence based. At the touch of a button, we can communicate with colleagues across the world to learn best practice. We have algorithms built into our vital observations systems to guide us around how to escalate concerns and when to repeat them. We can even view our off duty and request annual leave on our smart phones from the comfort of our own homes. I believe that digital nursing as a profession and career trajectory is a clinical specialism.
It requires clinical experience, risk management skills, leadership and communication skills that cover both the nursing world and the world of IT. It is growing, it is vital, and it isn't going away.
All too often however, digital developments and projects within the NHS are financed using capital funding. This is essentially a single pot of money with an expiration date, which is used to cover the costs of the project, after which the money has gone. This capital funding means that staff who are working on the project, including digital nurses and other informatics clinicians, are often employed on temporary contracts, or on secondment. Such employment contracts make recruitment into digital nursing posts a challenge and can give the impression that digital nursing isn't a long-term career option. It also doesn't consider the long-term maintenance of clinical digital systems that require the expertise of digital clinicians to oversee and protect patient safety.
This year I was extremely lucky to get a place on the inaugural Early Digital Career Leaders Programme at the Florence Nightingale Foundation. Being around other digital clinicians was really inspiring, and there were some key discussions that really struck a chord with me - the first being around the foundation's namesake and legacy, Florence Nightingale. Florence was an early pioneer in the use of data to drive clinical decision-making, improving patient safety by gathering information to provide evidence of good practice.
Data is the very essence of digital healthcare, and I believe we are really privileged to be working as nurses in the digital era, with the ability to collect and review data at our fingertips. Our patients benefit from this ever-evolving improvement in our practice, and we can provide care with the assurance that we are doing our (evidence-based) best.
Another point that really stuck with me, made by CHIME's Jane Dwelly, a guest speaker on the Digital Careers Leaders Programme and trustee of the Florence Nightingale Museum of International Nursing, is that in the NHS now, "all transformation is digital transformation". As nursing continues to advance in leaps and bounds, the common denominator in all this is digital, so isn't it time we stopped seeing IT, digital and informatics as 'other', and instead see it as a key component in nursing today and in the future?
We know that digital isn't temporary and is now as essential to nursing care as the medicines we administer or the dressings we apply. Surely, it's time for us to invest in it long term and employ our digital clinicians on this basis.
Natalie Hayes is chief nurse information officer, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust