Bishoy Dimitri, Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Vice-Chair of the Digital Health Networks CCIO Advisory Board, speaks exclusively with Digital Health News about his career journey to date, his priorities digital technologies and its ambitions for the next 12 months.
The trip to Oxford CCIO
Looking back in time to medical school, Dimitri remembers becoming interested in health care systems and organizations beyond just clinical medicine.
“I've always been interested in the bigger picture, despite my passion and love for medicine and studying this type of thing,” Dimitri told Digital Health News.
“Once I started working as a doctor, I felt intimidated by the career path I was going to follow, as it is usually standardized when you end up becoming a GP, surgeon or doctor.”
Dimitri explained that some of his medical school colleagues were abandoning the career altogether, but he was determined to stay in the NHS.
“I was very passionate about the NHS, I think it’s a wonderful organisation, it’s a great service,” he said.
“But he needs help, that’s how I approached it.” It takes people to change the way we do things and transform the way we approach the same challenges we've been facing for many, many years.
He started as a young doctor and always asked his consultants why they chose their specialties, with the aim of discovering what he wanted to subspecialize in.
“I always felt that my thirst for system change was greater than my passion for expanding a specific subspecialty to choose as a career path to become a consultant.
“As part of this, I have always strived to make quality improvement changes and leadership improvements within the organization in terms of improving the efficiency of how we do things,” did he declare.
He recalled a “crucial” conversation he had with the chief executive of Tameside Hospital, during which he suggested things that could be done better at the hospital, having completed training there for two years, and mentioned that he might apply for a job in London that combined clinical work with management support.
Dimitri was then offered a role at Tameside where he could split his week between clinical and non-clinical work, and eventually became deputy CCIO of the trust at the end of 2021. He then became CCIO at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trustin December 2022, a position he still holds today.
Current digital priorities
Dimitri described his role at Oxford as “a great opportunity to make and drive change in an organization that you could say is very digitally mature, but in many ways it's actually challenging for staff to complete their daily tasks due to the number of digital tasks. solutions we have.”
“As much as we try to get our basics right, we also try to stay ahead of the curve by thinking about AI and the latest technologies that we can bring to support our clinicians,” he added.
He explained that as the trust is a large organization with four hospital sites, many inquiries are received from people wanting to advance digital solutions.
Its aim is to reach a point where the trust can take the risk of assessing the many requests it receives and prioritize projects based on its needs, the problem they are trying to solve and whether the solution fully meets to that goal or is “just the next shiny new thing.” .
Another key priority for Dimitri is clinical safety and ensuring that all software and IT systems implemented by the trust are safe and have all the correct documentation.
He said the trust's electronic patient record (EPR) system needed improvement as things continued to be added to it to the point it was “not really functional anymore”.
Dimitri compared it to a Swiss army knife with so many different functions that it is no longer simple for staff but rather a burden.
Digital hopes for the next 12 months
“The most important thing for me is to empower patients,” explained Dimitri. “If we can give patients more access and better access to their data, which we have, then we hope it will change the way they approach healthcare so they can be more empowered and know exactly what’s happening with their health,” he added.
His aim over the next year is to increase the number of users of the trust's patient portal and make it easier for patients to access their health data.
He confirmed the trust's intention to be as integrated with the NHS app as possible to strengthen communication between patients and doctors or clinical teams.
As well as embedding a better culture of safety and clinical security within the organisation, Dimitri hopes to be able to improve data sharing between regions and NHS systems by linking to other shared care records.