Head of clinical informatics

Band 8c · Clinical informatician · 663 job evaluation points

Leads the organization's clinical informatics function and its clinical design authority, making sure that all clinical systems are designed, adopted, and improved with strong clinical leadership.

Responsibilities

Set the clinical informatics strategy and lead the clinical design authority for the organization.
Lead and develop the clinical informatics function, including its workforce plan and budget.
Give highly specialized advice to the executive team on the effect of digital investment on patient care.
Make sure that clinical systems meet clinical safety, terminology, and data standards.
Represent the organization with health and care partners, professional bodies, and academic networks.
Lead research and evaluation partnerships to build the evidence for digital health.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Registered clinical practice in digitalThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: lead clinical professional standards for the organization's digital work act as a senior clinical voice in decisions about patient safety and care support the revalidation and professional development of clinicians in digital roles
Clinical leadership in digitalThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: set the clinical direction for the organization's digital services lead clinical leaders across organizations through digital change advise the board on clinical risk and benefit of digital investment
Clinical system design and optimizationThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: set design principles and standards for clinical systems across the organization lead optimization programs that measurably improve care and staff experience advise senior leaders on clinical system choices and their effect on care
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead hazard identification and risk assessment for a product or change write and maintain hazard logs and clinical safety case reports agree risk controls with product teams and check that they work advise teams on applying clinical risk management standards
Clinical terminology and classificationThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: design data models and reference sets using clinical terminologies map between terminologies and classifications, and explain the limits of a mapping advise teams on terminology use in products and analytics
Digital health evaluation and benefitsThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: set the organization's approach to digital health evaluation lead research and evaluation programs with academic and care partners use evidence to advise the board on digital investment
People managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: lead managers and shape the culture of a large area design workforce plans and organizational change coach leaders and resolve complex people issues
Budget managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: hold and manage a budget, forecasting and explaining variances build a business case with costs and benefits
Strategic thinkingUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: define strategies and policies, providing guidance to others on working in the strategic context evaluate current strategies to ensure business requirements are being met and exceeded where possible
Leadership and guidanceUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: change organisational structures to fixable and sustainable designs lead on the strategy for the whole organisation, marrying business needs with innovative analysis make and justify decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent and diverse stakeholders solve and unblock issues between teams or departments at the highest level understand the psychology of a team and have strong mediation skills coach the organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution

Typical qualifications and experience

Current registration with a clinical professional body, with extensive clinical and leadership experience.
A master's degree in clinical or health informatics, or equivalent experience of leading clinical informatics at organization level.

Band 8c outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge, and wide organizational and sector understanding.
Autonomy: Sets strategy for a function; accountable to a director.
Scope: A function or department.
Leadership: Leads a function through several management layers.
Accountability: A function's performance, workforce, and budget.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	6	Gives highly complex, highly contentious information where there are significant barriers to acceptance, using the highest level of communication skills.	60
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgmental skills	5	Judgments on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organizational skills	5	Forms long-term strategic plans, with uncertainty and effects across the organization.	60
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	6	Develops specialized care, gives highly specialized advice, or is accountable for part of a clinical service.	39
Responsibility for policy and service development	5	Implements and develops a range of policies or services for a directorate.	45
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	4	Holds or sets the budget for a department or service, or buys or maintains its assets.	32
Responsibility for people	4	Line manages a function or department, designs training programs as a main duty, or delivers a full range of HR services.	32
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	2	Regularly does research, development, trials, or equipment and system testing as part of the job.	12
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	3	Frequent concentration on unpredictable work, or occasional prolonged concentration.	12
Emotional effort	2	Occasional exposure, or frequent indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	11
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8c: 630 to 674)			663

Patient care is scored at level 6 for highly specialized advice on patient care across the organization's clinical systems.