Health CIO profile: Kate Warriner

It’s probably not the most common journey into health informatics, but Kate Warriner’s fate was sealed while studying music at the University of Liverpool.

During her second year, Warriner got a part-time job in one of the city’s primary care groups, collecting forms and typing them up on a computer.

That was all it took. She was been bitten by the healthcare bug.  Fast forward a decade, and she is the deputy director of Informatics Merseyside.

iLinking it all up

Warriner started playing the piano at the age of four and the flute a few years later. That took her to university and her part-time job, in which she typed up coronary heart register summaries.

She also did a three month stint as a ward clerk at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust. When she graduated from university in 2002, she was offered a job as an IT trainer at North Liverpool Primary Care Trust.

 “I realised I really enjoyed it and I was pretty good at it,” she says. “I then went on to do a masters degree in health informatics and, through that, I did some project managing. Then I led a primary care IM&T transformation programme for Liverpool PCT.”

Showing enthusiasm and capability, she quickly moved up in the ranks and became the deputy head of IM&T at the commissioning organisation. It was during her time at the PCT that she did some work around shared care records using Emis Web, for which she won the John Perry Prize in 2008.

She consequently got involved with Informatics Merseyside, where she became the head of IM&T commissioning in 2011.

Taking the next information sharing steps

Around 12 months ago, she was promoted to deputy director of the organisation, which is pushing forward its biggest project to date: an ambitious informatics strategy that aims to share data across health and social care, with the involvement of 26 stakeholders.

“It is the biggest project I have ever worked on, the work we are embarking on now. It’s exciting, really exciting, to see what we’ve worked so hard on the last five to six years,” she says, speaking to EHI during the launch.

The strategy will need to support the outcome of the Liverpool Health Commission, which was set up by the city council to find “innovative” ways to improve health and wellbeing.

The commission, chaired by Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, concluded that a “radical shift” towards integrated care is needed, to focus on prevention and finding alternatives to hospital care.

The vision for the IT that will be needed to underpin this change is that anyone working in health and social care, anywhere in Liverpool, should have the information they need to do their jobs within the systems they normally use.

However, while the plan is to give staff role-based access to the patient’s record, customised to their role, a great deal of hard work is about to start figuring out what information to share, with whom and how.

 “It’s the next leg of the journey, it brings so much opportunity,” Warriner says, enthusiastic about starting on the “next leg of the journey”.

Playing with the band

Warriner has not completely given up her music career. In her spare time (of which she has rather little), she plays the piano in the Swingshift Big Band, a prominent jazz band in the area, and resident big band for the Southport Melodic Jazz Club.

She is also the principal flutist with the Maghull Wind Orchestra. “I still do a lot of music. It’s what keeps me sane,” she says. “It’s interesting, a lot of musicians are quite scientific, so I think there’s a link there.”

Meanwhile, the NHS has changed dramatically since she started working for it. But from the National Programme for IT to the creation of clinical commissioning groups, Warriner argues that one constant has been the reliance on” technology in front-line clinical practice.”

“There is so much more we can do though, in terms of informatics. It’s an enabling tool that’s been the constant that has developed,” she says. “The work we are doing with iLinks, we empower practitioners and the way they are relying on [technology]. It’s got to be there, underpinning the work they do.”

However, she adds, there is still a lot that needs to be done. “We still have an awful long way to go culturally and we need a big change in terms of culture in the NHS.”

Just do it…

With a mix of hard work, skill and a genuine passion for what she does, Warriner has got to where she is today.

She says that although it is challenging working for an organisation that deliver day to day services to its partners with a huge range of different needs, there is “nothing that frustrates me about it. I really, honestly love my job.”

When asked to give advice to others, the important thing, she says, is to build relationships. “Building relationships, trust and enthusiasm is crucial to make success with what we do,” she says. “It’s all about relationships and proving that we can do what we say we can do. I’m an activist and pragmatist. We need to DO.”

Kate Warriner is a member of the Health CIO Network advisory panel. The Health CIO Network has been set up by EHI to help chief information officers and other senior IT and information leaders to share experience, knowledge and best practice. More information on the dedicated Health CIO Network pages.