You are currently reading Issue 107: Tech Saviours, August 2021
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Connecting women and opportunity

Womanthology is a digital magazine and professional community powered by female energy and ingenuity.

Connecting women and opportunity

Womanthology is a digital magazine and professional community powered by female energy and ingenuity.

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Stepping up to the plate and ensuring those working hard on the COVID-19 front line have the support and technology they need to keep doing a fantastic job – Suzy Foster, CEO of EMIS Health

EMIS Health office

Suzy Foster is CEO of EMIS Health, where she is responsible for their NHS customers, and for EMIS Health’s end-to-end integrated care solution. Prior to joining EMIS Group, Suzy held senior roles at Microsoft UK, including leading their healthcare business for four years. She has a strong solutions and IT background and is a qualified accountant, with her career having been divided equally between large public and private sector organisations, where she has held a range of senior roles and managed large scale, technology enabled change programmes.

Suzy-Foster - EMIS Health
Suzy Foster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“…our staff and partners continued to excel, managing heroic acts of coding and roll out in timescales that would have appeared impossible pre-lockdown – all during a global pandemic!..”

The importance of IT and its role in connected healthcare

My current role is a far cry from where I started! I am a qualified accountant by profession, but after beginning my career in local government I soon recognised the importance of IT and its role in connected healthcare.

I experienced a huge disconnect between health, social care, local government, and NHS organisations, and was fascinated by how we could join up these services and make life better for everyone through IT.

After cutting my teeth in local government I moved to the private sector, initially at SAP before moving to Capgemini and Microsoft, where I spent five years as director of health and life sciences. Now, after almost 18 months at EMIS Health, I’ve found myself in an exciting and forward-thinking industry which has limitless potential to shape the future. 

Potential for what we can achieve through technology and the impact it can have on our customers and their patients

As you will have probably guessed from my background, I don’t have the technical expertise when it comes to developing our fantastic products and innovations here at EMIS Health. My passion lies within its potential for what we can achieve through technology and the impact it can have on our customers and their patients.

As CEO of EMIS Health, I make sure we are ambitious as a team, and that we do everything we promise we are going to do, keeping our customers, people and partners are happy.

Stepping up to the plate

surgical masksAs a leading supplier of IT to the NHS we have been able to step up to the plate and ensure those working hard on the front line have the support and technology they need to keep doing a fantastic job.

Our video consultation software was already available to GPs, but in light of the crisis, we rapidly rolled it out free of charge for 12 weeks to our 4,000 plus GP practices in England, and provided all EMIS GPs and pharmacists with access to our online consultation tool, which helps triage patients who ask for an appointment.

We also created a new coronavirus hub and a clinically-authored symptom checker to signpost people to help relieve pressure on primary care services.

Of course, while we have been working hard to support GP surgeries, community nurses, pharmacies and hospitals to keep going, we have also had our own lockdown pressures.

Much like other companies, we had to establish new ways of working and move hundreds of staff to home working in a matter of weeks. But I’m extremely proud to say not only did we achieve this fairly seamlessly, but our staff and partners also continued to excel, managing heroic acts of coding and roll out in timescales that would have appeared impossible pre-lockdown – all during a global pandemic! I still don’t know how we did it.

How tech is helping in the COVID-19 battle

On top of everything else already mentioned, we’ve been working hard with scientists, doctors and experts across the UK to develop tools to support the COVID-19 battle.

We are very grateful to GPs using EMIS clinical systems who have allowed the Nuffield Department of Primary Care at the University of Oxford and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to access anonymised data from patient records as part of their research to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

To women and girls considering tech careers…

EMIS Health OfficeMy advice is – go for it! The tech and healthcare market is a fantastic industry to be in no matter what your age or gender, it’s pioneering, forward-thinking and exciting.

Don’t get caught up in what you think a career in tech might involve. It’s a hugely diverse industry with something for everyone – don’t forget how I came to be involved.

Just remember, be your authentic self, because that’s your best self – there’s no point in trying to be something you’re not, because it just adds too much pressure.

Advice those from other sectors who have found themselves with a job

If you are looking at options and have a genuine interest in problem-solving, then now is a great time.  My advice would be to do your homework, find out what options are available to you and what you enjoy doing.

At EMIS Health we don’t worry about age or gender when it comes to taking on new staff, what concerns us is how passionate they are about the industry.

Apprenticeships are a fantastic way for people of all walks of life to retrain for a role they have the drive for, but it’s also a great way for us as a company to identify people who have the right passion and motivation for the role – we can work on the skills as we go along. 

Tech realisation

As a result of pressures caused by COVID, the NHS has been catapulted into the 21st century and has had its own ‘tech realisation’.

This is great news for us. We can now go forward knowing that this industry is capable of change and adopting new technology and we can continue to be innovative and pioneering with our developments.

At the moment we are focussed on EMIS-X, our next-generation platform which will enable us to continue to develop more solutions across our suite of clinical applications across primary, community and secondary health care. It will give users the ability to connect seamlessly to other systems, including those used by social care.

The entire company is excited about the potential for EMIS-X to help transform our health and social care services in the UK – there are exciting times ahead.

 

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