Health informatics
Real life stories
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Name: Heather Noon
Job title: clinical system trainer / IT trainer, Sussex Health Informatics Service
Entry route: joined from the private sector
As an information technology trainer you have to be a real "people person", as well as understanding IT systems. You are a bridge between the machines and the people who use them.
Our ultimate aim is to get everyone in the NHS – GPs, hospital doctors, health visitors – using the same computer system.
We show staff what you can do on a computer that supports your work. The systems do lead to better patient care – just one example is an alert we can put on a computer, which appears after a patient has waited a certain time in A&E.
It’s not just a matter of showing people how to use a screen. We are reinforcing what the trust wants to achieve, hitting targets and so on. So we have to gain a really good understanding of the way people work – everything from registering patient details to running clinics. We need plenty of details so we can configure the system precisely to suit them.
It’s very satisfying when you see results in the training room: someone who started out really petrified of computers – and we do get a lot of them – but who ends up happy and confident.
Taking a wider view, I see more and more people across the trusts gaining computer skills and learning how to use the systems confidently. It is great to help equip them for the future.
