IT in the NHS

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Hey guys

I’ve been volunteering at a hospital recently and that got me thinking about medical informatics (or medical IT). I was wondering if anyone here could give me insight into this field (specifically with regards to the NHS). I realise that you have traditional IT roles in hospitals like support/network technicians that have the same function as in Business IT.

My questions relate more to the database design and development or data management that the NHS employs, for instance: What DBMS is used (i.e. SQL server, Oracle etc or a proprietary system)? Is it essential to have an in depth knowledge of medical terminology/principals with regards to database development? What career routes are there? (I.e. from the entry level to a more involved job)Is there much in-house database development or is it outsourced?

Currently where I am volunteering they are looking to get some junior clinical coders, do you think that clinical coding would be a considered an entry level type position where you could progress to a more database related role within the NHS?

On a side note whatever happened to object oriented databases? They were touted as the next big thing but from my own limited knowledge experience relational databases seem to have the lions-share of the market.

I have all ready emailed the NHS on these matters but I’m still waiting on a response. Any information in the interim would be much appreciated.

 

In my experience clinical coders work more with medical records rather then in a creating database role, this is taken from a trainee clinical coding job advert, Clinical coding is the extraction of relevant information from patient’s medical casenotes, translating the diagnoses and procedures into codes using standard national classifications (ICD10 and OPCS4.4).

I have known developers who worked within the NHS, creating databases and so forth, I am not sure that their roles are as required as before, because of the standardising of NHS IT, with NPFIT. Obviously this depends on the trusts, and what they are doing, I agree with Ken, looking in the NHS jobs website is a good place to look.

Alice

 

Thanks for the responses. I am talking to a few IT guys in various trusts. I will probably post some of their responses to my questions, once I get them all compiled into one document.