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University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is delighted to announce that the Trust and its Digital Healthcare Team have been shortlisted for Digital Organisation of the Year and Digital Team of the Year at the 2024 HSJ Digital Awards. 

343 entries have been received for this year’s Digital Awards, with 165 projects and individuals meriting inclusion on the final shortlist. The high volume and exceptional quality of applications, once again mirrors the impressive levels of innovation and care continually being developed across the UK’s healthcare system. 

Following the thorough judging process, UHB was shortlisted, ahead of the official awards ceremony to be held on 6 June 2024 for its implementation of Prescribing Information Communication System (PICS); the in-house developed digital healthcare system that supports prescribing and medicines administration, imaging and blood sciences order requests and clinical decision support. PICS stood out as a real "success story" worthy of a prized place on the panel’s shortlist. 

Last year UHB concluded the largest roll-out of a secondary care electronic health record (EHR) in the history of the NHS. PICS, UHB’s EHR, was delivered over three years, included 15 consecutive go-live dates, the training of over 18,000 staff, delivery of over 1,200 laptops and computers on wheels and over 7,000 hours of around-the-clock floor walking support.  

The result is an EHR that is now used in over 3,000 hospital beds, has an annual activity of 67 million reported results, issued over 3 million prescriptions, 119 million recorded observations and resulted in raising the organisation’s overall HIMSS EMRAM, an assessment of the maturity of EHR workflows, from stage 2 to stage 5.

PICS has been a great success with colleagues embracing it and the new ways of working. UHB is now reaping the benefits of the successful implementation, with the system being used across all planned clinical services. 

Tanya Pankhurst, Consultant Nephrologist, Director of Digital Healthcare and Chief Clinical Information Officer said: “I’m incredibly proud to be working within teams of people who deliver change projects of this enormity, demonstrably improving safety and outcomes for the people we look after, improving workflows for busy clinical staff and delivering excellent value for the public money spent.” 

HSJ editor Alastair McLellan, adds; “It always gives me great pleasure to congratulate our finalists at this stage of the judging process and this year is no exception as we acknowledge University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust for being shortlisted in the category of Digital Team of the Year and Digital Organisation of the Year. 

“We can’t wait to welcome our finalists to the awards ceremony in June, celebrating their impressive achievements and jointly acknowledging our values of sharing best practice, improving patient outcomes and continuously driving for better service.” 

The selected winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at Manchester Central on 6 June 2024. 

The 2024 awards judging panel was once again made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community, including; Olubukola (Buki) Adeyemo, Chief Executive, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, Hatim Abdulhussein, National Clinical Lead, AI and Digital Workforce (WT&E), NHS England, Dame Margaret Whitehead, Chair, Independent Review Equity in Medical Devices and Luke Readman, Regional Director of Digital Transformation, NHS England (London). 

The full list of nominees for the 2024 HSJ Digital Awards can be found on the HSJ's awards site, which is linked below.