Case Study - Health Informatics

Sector: Education & Training

Richard Bowley and Tanya Randawa

The Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics in Newcastle (SCHIN) worked with Newcastle University’s Careers Service to arrange a placement with Tanya Randawa (BSc Biomedical Science) during 2010.

Newcastle Work Experience (NWE) is a placement scheme delivered through the Careers Service, matching Newcastle University students with local businesses to undertake project based work placements.

Richard Bowley, Research Associate for NHS Clinical Knowledge at SCHIN discusses the placement and about the benefits the scheme has brought to the business.

Placement Overview

Tanya came to us at the Sowerby Centre after completing her degree in Biomedical Sciences with an interest in medical informatics and knowledge management and was promptly thrown in at the deep end on her placement as Assistant Information Specialist. Her primary role was to facilitate in the authoring of topics for the Clinical Knowledge Summaries www.cks.nhs.uk, carrying out detailed and highly structured literature searches on the primary care management of conditions such as heart failure and type 2 diabetes. Results from these searches were then passed on to clinicians, and then the requested articles were collected and managed in an appropriate manner.

Tanya’s initial five week placement proved such a success that she was kept on for another five weeks, giving her an opportunity to participate in other projects at the centre. These included helping in the preparation with the initial application for a bid to run the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence’s Clinical Hubs as a national provider of on-line specialist collections of clinical conditions.

She also played a major role in the literature searching process for the development of a national guidance on the management of Norovirus in hospitals and residential care settings, as well providing support for various other projects within the centre as they were required.

Why we chose Newcastle Work Experience (NWE)

Having worked with the University by providing placements in the past, we were sure of a good source of candidates to fill the post. We also have another NWE summer placement student here working within our software team. The NWE scheme has proven to be excellent value for money and has enabled us to free up time for other projects.

Benefits to us

This is the first time we have had a placement student in our own team, so we were all excited about the prospect of giving the candidate the opportunity to not only learn from us, but also for us to learn from the candidate. Tanya has exceeded our expectations and provided us with much needed support during a very busy period, consistently contributing a high standard of work and enabling us to complete a number of important projects on time. We have greatly benefited from having her working with us and this experience would definitely encourage us to take on placement students within our team in the future.

Skills contributed

Tanya has successfully implemented her experience and skills gained from her degree course into a working environment. Her attention to detail with her literature searching has been excellent and her attitude to getting work done is second to none. Tanya has great enthusiasm for tackling new and challenging tasks, she has gained more confidence in her role here at the centre and has become a valued member of the team.

What next?

We have been so impressed with Tanya we have employed her initially on a six month contract.

Further information