NZ Digital Academy pre-videoconference 2 July ideas for discussion

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1

Hi everyone,

Further to our initial conversations and our videoconference with the NHS Digital Academy team it’d be great to have some online discussion here to inform our next videoconference meeting on July 2nd. Hopefully that will allow us to make progress quickly enough to be in a position to bid nor funding later this year.

I think if we are to set up an NZ digital academy it’s important to aim for something achievable in the first year, which we can build on in subsequent years. As a way of starting the debate I will outline one possible approach here which can act as a straw man. Please pick holes in it, come up with alternative options, and debate the possibilities here. We can then try to pull it all together at the next v/c.

My very draft suggestion:

NZ digital academy based on the 6 module approach to digital leadership taken by the NHS, with a similar overall curriculum.

First cohort of 40 recruited from CIOs, CCIOs and similar across NZ health sector.

Academically pitched at Post Graduate Certificate level to ensure it’s achievable alongside a busy full time role. - future possibility to extend to higher level degree.

Funding for public health sector participants from MOH (NHIP).

Mix of distance learning and residential block courses.

All NZ universities involved collaboratively, with some existing papers used where appropriate. Involvement of experts from other sectors and industries, where possible.

Likely cost approximately $10-15k per participant.

Key benefits - creating strong network of leaders with shared skill set and tools; proof of concept for future extension to other levels; upskilling key leaders across the sector.

What do you think?

Steve

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2

Our discussion following the last videoconference is in this PM (almost functions as minutes!):
https://ehealthforum.nz/t/nz-digital-health-academy-email-discussion-converted-to-discourse/9373

And the topic about an NZ Digital Health Academy in the #open-forum:
https://ehealthforum.nz/t/nz-digital-health-academy/9107

6

Hi all
This sounds good Steve.

I would like to throw out another idea in order to get us started.

Im wondering if in the short term we might be able to piggyback on the NHS programme more? Maybe investigate whether there is any possibility of ‘franchising’ or co-developing a NZ version of their programme rather than inventing our own. I really like
their programme and the philosophy behind what they have built. I feel it would also be way more attractive to our high level leaders we are targeting, than a new NZ programme that is based off existing university papers. So Im wondering if we could share
some of hteir content, NZ-ify the systems, have NZ residentials maybe even co-hosted by some of their people. So we would still make the most of our NZ networking and building communiities for sharing and learning, but also link them in to the UK/international
networks as well. Or maybe even have a small number go over and do their course.

I know Claudia and she knows NZ quite well, so I have raised this with her to see whether something along these lines could be a possibility - what do others think?

Robyn

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From: Steve Earnshaw via Digital Health Networks [discourse-notifications@digitalhealth.net]
Sent: 20 June 2019 21:40
To: Robyn Whittaker (WDHB)
Subject: [dhn] [PM] NZ Digital Academy ideas for discussion

searnshaw

Steve Earnshaw
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 20Hi everyone,

Further to our initial conversations and our videoconference with the NHS Digital Academy team it’d be great to have some online discussion here to inform our next videoconference meeting on July 2nd. Hopefully that will allow us to make progress quickly enough
to be in a position to bid nor funding later this year.

I think if we are to set up an NZ digital academy it’s important to aim for something achievable in the first year, which we can build on in subsequent years. As a way of starting the debate I will outline one possible approach
here which can act as a straw man. Please pick holes in it, come up with alternative options, and debate the possibilities here. We can then try to pull it all together at the next v/c.

My very draft suggestion:

NZ digital academy based on the 6 module approach to digital leadership taken by the NHS, with a similar overall curriculum.

First cohort of 40 recruited from CIOs, CCIOs and similar across NZ health sector.

Academically pitched at Post Graduate Certificate level to ensure it’s achievable alongside a busy full time role. - future possibility to extend to higher level degree.

Funding for public health sector participants from MOH (NHIP).

Mix of distance learning and residential block courses.

All NZ universities involved collaboratively, with some existing papers used where appropriate. Involvement of experts from other sectors and industries, where possible.

Likely cost approximately $10-15k per participant.

Key benefits - creating strong network of leaders with shared skill set and tools; proof of concept for future extension to other levels; upskilling key leaders across the sector.

What do you think?

Steve

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@robyn.whittaker it certainly makes sense to reuse as much as we can from the NHS. Their programme has been incredibly well received- and from memory the Irish digital health sector is also franchising content from them

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8

Good idea to consider these options. Good practice to include them in a business case for funding.

Don’t underestimate (or undermine) what local academics can pull off for you.

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karenblake
NZ CiLN Co-chair

June 21

@robyn.whittaker
it certainly makes sense to reuse as much as we can from the NHS. Their programme has been incredibly well received- and from memory the Irish digital health sector is also franchising content from them

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9

Another option might be to:
1, self check against competencies to identify areas of weakness/interest. Could possibly look at a CHIA here but I am not sure about that
2 use existing pg programmes from NZ Universities that would address these areas plus perhaps some cores areas for everyone - all the Uni courses have core areas in common
3. A wraparound set of residential courses that address specific areas such as clinical informatics leadership and provides the network based activities
4. Ongoing work project that would inform and be used for reflection as part of course assessments

Rationale:
The advantage of this is that we can take advantage of existing pg programmes without having to develop a national programme that is cross-University which is a non-trivial and lengthy process. Thus enabling an immediate start.
Also prospective students can select the mode of learning that suits them best as some programmes are face to face and some online and some a mixture of both, and can also select the location - Auckland, Canterbury or anywhere (Massey, distance only). Also would mean that pedagogical and other academic considerations have already been sorted by each university.

The wrap around residential courses could have one at the start to get everyone together, one mid way and one at the end. A discourse forum could be setup for these students. This wraparound could be administered and run by academics, plus others with relevant skill sets from industry and the sector but be under the umbrella of the Ministry or HINZ for example, thus enabling students from any of the university programmes to participate again without the need to have formal cross university agreements as this part would sit outside of the Universities and be very sector driven and applied. Students would still get a University PG Diploma that could lead to Masters and PhD if wanted. HINZ runs very successful seminars and conferences so has the experience to organise action learning based residential courses if the Ministry did not want to do it themselves.

Costs would be the standard Uni costs (around $9,000) and the.extra for the wraparound residential courses (around $3,000 depending of #nights, cost of accommodation and flights).

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10

In reply to Robyn, the NHS people could assist with the residential courses, perhaps come over for one. We could use their activities, and so on.

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11

Or a PGCertificate instead of a PGDip then costs are half that of the PGDip course, and can be competed in one semester fulltime or two semesters parttime.

Then if students wanted to carry on later with academic study, this could be credited into a PGDip or Masters course (depending on grades).

So a PG Cert with a wraparound set of residential courses could be completed in one year.

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12

Knowing how hard study can be in parallel with a busy CCIO role I’m quite in favour of the PGCert option to keep it achievable, but retaining the residential and networking components.

13

A ‘stair-cased’ approach (PG Cert to PG Dip to Masters) might be a good option, as you mention Steve. The important thing is to get
the Cert bang on what people need in the first instance. Thereafter people can move into existing programmes. This might also take care of the ‘aspiring’ (next generation) leaders to support those who have been through the programme as existing leaders.

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searnshaw

Steve Earnshaw
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 24

Knowing how hard study can be in parallel with a busy CCIO role I’m quite in favour of the PGCert option to keep it achievable, but retaining the residential and networking components.

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So the quickest way would be to allow students to take a PG cert that suits the from existing ones offered by the universities based on individual need and run the workshop through HINZ for example if they were interested using ideas/people from the UK DA as suitable. The networking online forum could be this discourse forum.
Then we bypass loads of hurdles and get something up and running very fast. Developing an encompassing national cross-university DA would take much more work and time. It is possible but the Uni regs need to be considered.

15

Is there an existing PG Cert that offers the mix of topics that the NHS DA does? Or can we create one by mixing and matching some existing papers with some new specific material, group work, and residential blocks? It would be good for all the participants to do the same programme - if they all do something different we might lose the advantages of creating a shared language and tool set.

16

A PG cert is 60 credits, usually made up of 2x30 or 4x15 credit courses. I suspect we could not map exactly to the UK DA version, but we could get close with content. The name of the PGCert and course names might be more generic, and will differ between Universities, but generally the content and assessments can be massaged to fit. Courses have titles, prescriptions and main learning outcomes which have to go though a University process to be changed, which usually takes year as it has to go through various approval stages and committees -hence they are often fairly broad. It is much easier to massage the underlying content and assessments as long as they broadly align with the prescription and learning outcomes as this is under the control of the academic delivering the course.

For example, UoA have a PG Cert Health Informatics whereas Massey has a PG Cert Business and AUT and Canterbury have a PG Cert in Health Sciences. The acad mics from each can advise of specific offerings but all have a list of courses to pick from.

A new PG cert requires a University business case equivalent process and takes at least a year. So depends on how quickly people want to get things up and running, bearing in mind that the Universities can decline to offer a new PG Cert.

What would you think about a workshop to work through the structure, content and options from existing courses?

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17

I think using some existing papers would be a good option.
In addition to the programmes you mentioned Inge I’m aware that UC has a PG Cert in Strategic Leadership (8 10 point papers from the UC MBA programme) which may give us some additional paper options if we are trying to cover transformational leadership in addition to Health Informatics.

18

Also I think, but could be wrong, that much of the shared toolbox, etc could be dealt with in the residentIal workshops. Also it is possible to have different cohorts within one a PGCert so that a DA cohort across different PGCerts could have some standardised content and assessment within individual Uni PG Certs so they come to the residential courses with similar experiences. For example I often have students doing different ‘flavours’ within the same course based on their goals, such as RACMA or ACHI fellowship or work requirements.

So, standardisation of the course on one hand is good, I agree, for the reasons you have stated, but the people coming in won’t be standardised and some will have different learning needs to others.

The alternative is to pick one University PGCert, at least in the short term, pending developing a national one.

19

Yes, most if not all Universities have this sort of range of courses, again may have slightly different names, but can cover much the same ground. So we could dip and pick. UoO health informatics programme is under revision so I don’t know what is planned there.

20

The Master of Health Leadership at The University of Auckland has the mix of courses you’re looking for but with a different pitch
from what you’re looking for (i.e. doesn’t specifically address senior leaders). We would need to get permission to have a PG Cert, but I don’t think this would be onerous.

Alternatively, my PG Cert in Health Informatics (at the University of Auckland) can be customised to your needs. The course selection
needs to be internally approved.

I know a professor who has successfully had two different groups of people doing the same course, e.g. Masters level researchers with
PhD researchers, without either group feeling like they’re in the wrong cohort or feeling too much/little of the right kind of learning challenge. Internally the University of Auckland can address this adjustment to split two cohorts in a single class, which
shouldn’t be onerous.

In terms of ‘tuning the courses’ to the executive participants’ needs, we can do this with a number of different tools. At this stage
we would need some help from the UK Digital Academy to do the tuning.

I speak for The University of Auckland. Perhaps the other academics have something just as adjustable for you.

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searnshaw

Steve Earnshaw
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 24

Is there an existing PG Cert that offers the mix of topics that the NHS DA does? Or can we create one by mixing and matching some existing papers with some new specific material, group work, and residential blocks? It would be good
for all the participants to do the same programme - if they all do something different we might lose the advantages of creating a shared language and tool set.

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Good summary Inga. The deadline for prescription and course title changes at Auckland Uni is April each year, so if we want to change
titles we need to get weaving asap.

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Ihunter

Inga Hunter
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 24

A PG cert is 60 credits, usually made up of 2x30 or 4x15 credit courses. I suspect we could not map exactly to the UK DA version, but we could get close with content. The name of the PGCert and course names might be more generic, and
will differ between Universities, but generally the content and assessments can be massaged to fit. Courses have titles, prescriptions and main learning outcomes which have to go though a University process to be changed, which usually takes year as it has
to go through various approval stages and committees -hence they are often fairly broad. It is much easier to massage the underlying content and assessments as long as they broadly align with the prescription and learning outcomes as this is under the control
of the academic delivering the course.

For example, UoA have a PG Cert Health Informatics whereas Massey has a PG Cert Business and AUT and Canterbury have a PG Cert in Health Sciences. The acad mics from each can advise of specific offerings but all have a list of courses
to pick from.

A new PG cert requires a University business case equivalent process and takes at least a year. So depends on how quickly people want to get things up and running, bearing in mind that the Universities can decline to offer a new PG
Cert.

What would you think about a workshop to work through the structure, content and options from existing courses?

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Steve, we should have someone from UC in this discussion, just to be fair.

If they have 10-point courses, that’s a little different from the 15-points courses you would expect in NZ universities. We will need to bear this in mind when
working out equivalence.

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···

searnshaw

Steve Earnshaw
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 24

I think using some existing papers would be a good option.
In addition to the programmes you mentioned Inge I’m aware that UC has a PG Cert in Strategic Leadership (8 10 point papers from the UC MBA programme) which may give us some additional paper options if we are trying to cover transformational leadership in addition
to Health Informatics.

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23

Agree Inga. I also have students with different needs and most of my courses are built to accommodate those differences. I expect the
Digital Academy is also designed to accommodate and leverage differences to enhance learning.

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···

Ihunter

Inga Hunter
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

June 24

Also I think, but could be wrong, that much of the shared toolbox, etc could be dealt with in the residentIal workshops. Also it is possible to have different cohorts within one a PGCert so that a DA cohort across different PGCerts
could have some standardised content and assessment within individual Uni PG Certs so they come to the residential courses with similar experiences. For example I often have students doing different ‘flavours’ within the same course based on their goals, such
as RACMA or ACHI fellowship or work requirements.

So, standardisation of the course on one hand is good, I agree, for the reasons you have stated, but the people coming in won’t be standardised and some will have different learning needs to others.

The alternative is to pick one University PGCert, at least in the short term, pending developing a national one.

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