Dr Chris Paton

Health informatics — sometimes called clinical informatics or digital health — is a growing area of professional practice within UK medicine. Most clinicians who work in informatics do so on a hybrid basis, splitting time between clinical practice and digital roles (Chief Clinical Information Officer, clinical safety officer, clinical lead for an electronic health record deployment, and so on). There is also a small but expanding number of dedicated subspecialty training posts.

The Faculty of Clinical Informatics, established in 2017, is the professional body for clinically qualified informaticians in the UK. The Faculty publishes core competencies, runs continuing professional development, and is working towards recognition of clinical informatics as a formal subspecialty within the General Medical Council framework. The BMJ journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics is the principal peer-reviewed venue for the UK clinical informatics community.

Routes into the field include a Master's in Health Informatics or Digital Health (offered by several UK universities), short-course programmes from NHS England and the Topol Programme, and on-the-job experience through Trust-level informatics teams. International collaborations through the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) provide the wider research and policy context.