Clinical Applications Analyst

Job responsibilities

Deliver excellent customer service, supporting team to ensure that services provided across the group are and continue to be effective, meet the clinical and business needs of the Group, and represent best value for money.

Deliver a high quality service ensuring the team exceed agreed service level agreements, prioritising workload and ensuring priorities are met for systems access, development and user issues.

Propose improvements to ensure systems are reliable and resilient, and that robust arrangements for maintenance are in place and regularly assessed.

Support the digital teams and clinical users in relation to the implementation and strategic development of electronic patient records and diagnostic systems within the Trust through your specialist knowledge.

Build and optimise configuration for new and existing clinical applications.

Ensure the Clinical Safety Management system is followed and all clinical risks are assessed in conjunction with the Clinical Safety Officer.

Ensure that all changes to the system are reviewed and signed off as safe prior to implementation.

Communicate with external organisations over service issues e.g. third party suppliers, other NHS organisations, to ensure any outstanding issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the Trust.

Using your knowledge of systems, work with stakeholders to ensure the effective integration of the Clinical Applications with other systems with the aim of maximising the efficiency of the clinical workflow overall, and longer term business planning.

Use appropriate testing methodologies and systems to ensure Patient and Clinical IT systems meet trust and legislative requirements, particularly in support of upgrades, security patches, etc.

Champion and role model the Groups values and behaviours and support others in doing so to deliver the Group Vision and Mission successfully.

You will be an integral contributor to the identification and management of risk and issues throughout the development lifecycle, referring only to your manager where necessary.

Clinical Applications improvement and support

Basic awareness of hospital workflow and systems to ensure effective support of Clinical Applications to maximise clinical and operational benefits from these systems.

Advise clinical and admin users on the most effective, safe and efficient use of the Clinical Applications available.

Independently assist the day to day system management and user support of these electronic patient systems post implementation and for managing those colleagues undertaking system administration and support duties. This will often require investigation of complex systems and technology, fault finding and resolution.

Identify, in conjunction with stakeholders, any clinical risks associated with the use of Clinical Applications and electronic patient records.

Working closely with the Test Lead, to support the development of testing plans based on the complex workflow and system configuration requirements to ensure the systems are fit for purpose and meet clinicians needs.

Provide support and professional advice regarding Clinical Applications.

Leadership

Work closely with the team, creating the environment for happy, motivated and highly-performing teams.

Work closely with the Digital Transformation and Innovation services on upgrades and policies/procedures.

Assist in the implementation of the Group Digital Strategy, in line with Group, Trust and National priorities and initiatives, and leading digital techniques.

Technical Service Delivery

Using initiative to plan work to ensure effective service delivery, the post holder will resolve conflicting timescales and priorities independently and exercise judgement and discretion to resolve issues, seeking support only where necessary.

Contribute to the leadership and specialist knowledge in the implementation and delivery of your area of service modelled around agreed methodologies.

Ensuring processes are in place which will:

Deal promptly and efficiently with all patient identification and electronic records management issues in order to minimise clinical risk.

Ensure electronic patient systems are available to support the continuity of patient care at all times.

Record and document day-to-day maintenance, faults and performance issues using an industry standard ITIL approach.

Create account access and passwords within agreed SLAs, supporting team with knowledge and guidance as required.

You will also be required to adopt a mentor role in the development of team members to assist them in acquiring in-depth knowledge of Clinical Applications including PAS and EPR and any others falling under the remit of the Clinical Systems team eg. Choose & Book.

Participate in a Trust wide patient systems quality assurance and audit programme to optimise the clinical potential of systems. Ensure on-going effective service delivery by anticipating and responding to evolving clinical service needs.

Deliver the maintenance and remedial work where appropriately scheduled and undertaken so that it does not adversely impact the availability of business critical systems.

Support the work to ensure that appropriate disaster recovery and business continuity procedures are in place for critical systems under your responsibility and that disaster recovery testing is performed in line with scheduled plans.

Performance

Adhere to performance standards for your service area, including KPIs, monitor achievement against these, review working practices and devise improved ways of working where necessary to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of services delivered.

Propose improvement to systems that are in place and routinely analyse and manage IT resource utilisation in your area of responsibility in order to provide efficient and optimised digital services.

Carry out the regular compliance auditing undertaken to assure that the Group does not breach contractual or legal obligations.

Policies and Procedures

Through review, propose changes and support the maintenance of up to date policies, guidelines, standard operating procedures, and standards covering the use and management of all Clinical Applications, resources, and assets (physical and data). Ensure that policies are kept up to date, are in line with National policy, standards, and guidance, and comply with all relevant legislative requirements.

Support with internal and external auditors to ensure that an appropriate ICT audit programme is in place, commensurate with risk and all accepted audit recommendations are completed promptly, seeking support only when necessary.

Communication

Support the Digital portfolio at local levels, developing partnerships, sharing best practice and integrating knowledge across the Group.

Build good relationships and ensure effective IT partnerships with other organisations across the ICS, locally, regionally and nationally.

Form constructive relationships with suppliers to optimise the delivery of solutions and maximise the Groups influence on the future direction of the suppliers products.

You will be able to communicate complex application based issues with clinicians, using plain English to enable accurate issue investigation and resolution.

Role Requirements

Participate in the provision of 24/7 Applications support and maintenance on an oncall basis.

Frequent VDU use is required for this post for periods of up to 3 to 4 hours at a time to produce complex reports and analysis to support decision-making.

High levels of concentration will be required on a wide variety of complex issues throughout the day. The post holder will frequently have to adapt to changing priorities and re-focus the work of self and others on new priority areas that may require urgent action.

The post holder will participate in and facilitate meetings, which require a high level of concentration on a wide range of topics, with a variety of audiences and mixtures of attendees.

There will also be a requirement to present complex information at meetings which will require the individual to have a high level of concentration frequently for a sustained period of time to ensure that there is active engagement in the subject matter at hand.

Exposure to unpleasant working conditions or hazards is rare.

We support distributed and flexible working arrangements, however, subject to business needs, there may be a requirement to travel between the Kettering and Northampton Hospital sites and other sites across the Group.

Office conditions, with an occasional requirement to travel between sites in this role (for example, to support go lives of projects; an unforeseen level of absence at one site; support training or onboarding of new starters; team workshops etc.).

Education, Training & Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to degree education or equivalent level or equivalent experience
• Evidence of continuous personal and professional development

Desirable

• ITIL Certification or relevant experience or working in an ITIL environment
• Evidence of experience or qualification in one or more of the following: SQL / SQL Server, HL7 Interfaces, Reporting tools (e.g. Business Objects), Windows Server Administration

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Evidence of continuing professional development
• Minimum of 2 years experience in an IT support role
• Experience in contributing to the success of a multi-disciplinary team as effective team member
• Experience of contributing to the development of policies and procedures

Desirable

• Demonstrable understanding of clinical workflows relevant to EPR in NHS setting
• Contributing to digital/IT clinical systems change/project while also developing and maintaining high standards of quality
• Knowledge of the provision of health services
• Contributing to digital/IT clinical systems change/project while also developing and maintaining high standards of quality
• Knowledge of digital healthcare standards and NHS datasets and their relationship to coding, finance and commissioning
• Knowledge of clinical risk management policies and processes
• Understanding of NHS IT systems and services
• Experience of developing and executing testing plans

Skills

Essential

• Good verbal and written communication and presentation skills suitable for a range of audiences
• Able to clearly manage priorities for self and contribute to those of team in order to meet targets
• Quality focused with an innovative approach and ability to solve complex problems
• Proficiency in the use of IT tools, particularly Microsoft Office. Advanced keyboard skills
• Ability to undertake duties effectively and to time in line with legislation, policies and procedures

Desirable

• Have experience of contributing to supporting an organisational wide IT system
• Be able to communicate about operational requirements for system management (e.g. performance monitoring etc)
• Familiar with hospital environment and the role of EPR Systems in the clinical and business operation of the Trust

Key Competencies/ Personal Qualities & Attributes

Essential

• Must be able to demonstrate analytical thinking and the ability to work through problems to a resolution
• Ability to deliver to targets and deadlines
• Highly motivated, hard-working, self-confident, robust and resilient individual with drive and determination to deliver
• Ability to interpret and convey complex information from various systems in a manner that is easily understood by a variety of users
• Must be able to demonstrate both formal and informal communication ability, orally and in writing, when dealing with colleagues and other staff at all levels
• Aligned to the Group's values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect, Integrity and Courage
• Honesty and professional integrity
• Passionate commitment to embedding diversity and equality internally and externally
• Ability to travel between the Kettering and Northampton Hospital sites and other sites across the Group (where postholders are required to travel as part of their role)

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).