A week in the life of an Informatics Lead Nurse: Monday

Read about day 1 of Roda Luz Trinidad's week in her life.

Hi, my name is Roda Luz Trinidad. Friends and colleagues call me Dang. I am the Informatics Lead Nurse at The Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust. I have 16 years of Adult Critical Care nursing experience. My journey in digital started in 2015 as the Senior Sister in charge of the quality improvement (QI) project in digitising health records in the intensive care unit (ICU). I was offered to be part of the trust’s digital transformation WeConnect team and have been in this post since September 2019. 

I am passionate about how digital innovation can help transform the integrated health and care system to ensure quality care delivery and using data to inform the way we work and support the population, with diversity and inclusion at the centre of practice. 

Let me give you a sneak peek at what my working week looks like, starting with Monday.

First day of the week normally starts with catching up on emails, checking what happened over the weekend and reviewing the 724 devices status for the hospital.

Today, I have the new Informatics Link Nurse from one of our hospitals in the trust shadowing me on a few meetings and sessions. Work shadowing should be available in each organisation. If you are a woman of colour, within digital health and care, passionate about promoting an inclusive leadership and wish to know more about digital shadowing at work, some information can be found on the Shuri Network Digital Shadowing Programme - Hexitime.

Morning hospital safety huddle to start the day, where we discuss safer staffing, safety briefing on the big 4 priorities, and top news for sharing with clinical staff. This week, I highlighted the relaunch of “Green Tick Go”, the electronic way of letting the emergency department know that the bed is ready to take the patient to the ward. A QI project to improve flow and patient experience. 

I caught up with the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) team to plan how we can improve compliance on electronic documentation on lines and devices. We recently conducted a walk rounds and virtual demos to focus on teaching clinical staff on how to accurately record insertion, care and removal of lines on the system which was positively received and showed some improvements both on documentation standards and IPC rates. We intend to do this as part of the October IPC awareness month. 

A quick break to check on emails and requests from the clinical staff who escalated a connectivity issue on the digital electrocardiogram (ECG) and vitals link machine in a ward. A few minutes of troubleshooting with the staff and sorted! 

Off to deliver a teaching session for the new band 6s in the adult critical care unit where I emphasised their role on documentation standards and information governance. Being new to the role puts them in the best position to influence safe practice and to support the junior staff. 

I recently started on the Digital Health Leadership Programme, which is delivered by Imperial College London and Health Education England. I met with my executive sponsor to discuss my personal development plan and how we can make the most out of the year-long programme. I am excited and looking forward to this journey! 

A short debrief with the new link nurse shadowing me and this ends my day on a high.