Central and North West London NHS’ Director of IT Mark Large on challenges he faces and improving patient healthcare

Central and North West London NHS’s Director of IT Mark Large tells CIO UK about some the challenges he faces working in the healthcare sector, as well as delivering digital technology during a complete restructuring of the Trust.

Speaking at the 2016 CIO Summit, Large discusses digital technologies he is currently developing at Central and North West London NHS. He also describes digital industry trends on getting the “best possible” experience for healthcare patients. (See also: Belron focusing on Big Data and cloud to improve customer experience)

Challenges in healthcare

In this interview, Large talks about how the Trust are no longer “laying cables” and are focusing on creating a better business engagement. The Director of IT sees his biggest challenge in his Director role is making huge investments with the complexity of keeping the hospital running.

The organisation is currently improving their clinical systems which will increase staff productivity with Director of IT Large seeing difficulty in transitioning team members. who are used to the traditional system.

“Staff using the old kit are still not happy in being used to the traditional system but can see the value it will have on the Trust,”he said. “It’s going to make a big change to what’s happening at the hospital with the clinical system holding our main record,” he said.

Central and North West London NHS’ are looking to create a better patient experience in delivering digital technology, and Large discusses how crucial his role is within the healthcare sector.

“If one of our systems goes down or if we get something wrong then this can have an impact on the patient within seconds so it’s important to make sure patients are properly engaged.”

The digital leader finally shares his advice of where he sees the future of the CIO role, in having to be “open to ideas” in delivering great technology.

“Part of moving forward is that it’s okay to make mistakes but creating a safe environment and having the team to understand that can lead a team to that attainable goal. “ (Read next: Columnist Ian Cox discusses challenges facing IT leaders)