UK

NHS (National Health Service)

Careers in clinical informatics

The National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom (UK) is the largest employer of health staff. On their NHS careers website - [1] -, they define and describe their view of what clinical informatics is, and the types of job roles available.

In their definition, 'Clinical Informatics (CI) concerns the capture, communication and use of patient data and clinical knowledge by Doctors and other Clinical Professionals and the development and implementation of electronic tools to support the whole cycle of clinical information.'

They describe several types of job roles for clinical informaticians, including administrative roles and roles for clinical professionals.

Clinical informatics in practice

How clinical informatics is seen on the ground, as opposed to its theoretical aspects, can best be assessed from the sorts of descriptions, tasks and functions that different hospitals' Clinical Informatics Departments describe themselves as undertaking.

Clinical Informatics Department, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust. [2]

The Clinical Informatics department is described as being 'part of the Clinical Support Services division' and covers:

   * Access to Health Records
   * Clinical Coding and Contracts
   * Clinical Effectiveness and Audit
   * Clinical Records Library
   * Research and Development
   * Research Ethics
   * Information Governance (Caldicott/Data Protection)
   * Trust Web Services

Worcestershire Countywide Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services ([3]) has a Clinical Informatics Team that is primarily set up to support the Health Care Professionals in the county through providing services such as:

   * Input data onto the various computer based systems.
   * Process the data input on the computer systems.
   * Clarify and Rectify data.
   * Use data to generate ongoing reports.
   * Provide Ad-Hoc reports for Health Care Professionals.
   * Support the clinical applications used by Health Care Professionals.
   * Work towards the modernisation of Informatics.