Lana began her career at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham as a Hepatology and Gastrenterology nurse. As a new nurse, Lana quickly became accustomed to digital technology. Throughout her time in the acute setting, Lana experienced first-hand the transition from paper to digital noting alongside many other digital transformations. Lana quickly recognised the opportunities this provided to revolutionise the way in which we work to support clinical care.

Making the Move to Digital

As time progressed, Lana began exploring new opportunities to elevate her career. She successfully acquired a new role at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton as a Sepsis specialist nurse. It was a completely different environment for Lana, with a range of both paper-based processes and digital systems, some of which she had never used. It was a huge learning curve regarding the differences between NHS Trusts and the use of clinical systems and her new role as Sepsis Nurse meant she had to quickly adapt to these different practices.

Within Lana’s sepsis specialist nurse role, she did lots of work with the sepsis module on the Careflow Vital solution. mainly reviewing compliance with data input into the sepsis module and identifying improvement areas, which really kick-started her digital journey. Lana worked alongside a data analyst, looking at how the Sepsis data could be used to support clinical workflows and identify where further training was required.

There was a role coming up for a Digital Nurse to support the implementation of a brand-new communication system called CareFlow Connect. Initially, Lana was very apprehensive about the move, not fully understanding the role of a digital nurse but after some deliberation she decided to go for it.

This is where Lana’s Journey into digital really took off, she was immediately emersed into the project, developing knowledge and skills in both Healthcare Information System (HIT) deployment and change management. Whilst not without it’s challenges Lana immediately knew this was a career path she was determined to progress in. She saw her role as a bridge between the clinical staff and IT colleagues, successfully communicating and supporting the rollout of the new system.

Participating in the Aspiring Digital Leadership Programme

She became a Clinical Safety Officer (CSO) and attended the Florence Nightingale Foundation led Aspiring Digital Leadership Programme to develop both clinical safety and digital leadership skills to help her on her digital journey. This really opened doors for Lana from a networking point of view and it was comforting to meet others in similar roles where ‘imposter syndrome’ was a shared experience. The Florence Nightingale course was a great introduction into digital leadership and gave Lana the confidence to continue to progress within digital roles.

Lana is now the Digital Matron at New Cross Hospital leading the clinical workstream for the brand new CareFlow EPR system. She leads a team of 6 digital clinicians including digital nurses and a digital AHP. She is extremely passionate about the importance of clinical representation within HIT deployment and ensuring that clinical safety is managed appropriately throughout.  She acknowledges the benefits of HIT systems and how this can positively impact patient care and workforce efficiency.

The Future

Looking to the future Lana would like to underpin her experience with further academic study and is looking forward to seeing the development of digital career pathways. For now though, her immediate focus is supporting the newly formed digital clinical team in their digital journey and the successful implementation of the EPR.

Next Steps

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