Peter joined ThinkShield in the past year, having graduated from the University of Bristol in July of 2010 with a BSc in Biological Sciences. In this short interview Peter provides some insights into his role within the company.

I understand that you're based at one the main London hospitals. Where are you based and what is your role?

I’m working at St Mary’s Hospital next to Paddington Station. It is part of the Imperial College NHS Trust, along with Charing Cross Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital. My role at St Mary’s is Applications Support, primarily for the A&E System, “Symphony”, but also other systems to a lesser extent.

Could you tell me a bit more about the job you are doing?

My job covers a wide range of roles. It varies from the simple tasks of setting up users on the system and resetting passwords, dealing with printing issues and general maintenance of the system, to the development and progression of the system as a viable patient triage application.

Quite recently I developed a new module within the application for the Paeds department to comply with the Pilot Injury Prevention scheme they are part of. This involved multiple new lookup table and pop-up screens to ensure all the necessary data is captured correctly and efficiently.

I also worked with A&E staff to ensure the department was compliant for the mandatory HRG v4 reporting which came into effect on the 1st April Nationwide.

How does the hospital benefit from your work and why is it so important?

As my role is less of a project and more of an on-going requirement for maintenance purposes it is hard to define the specific benefits from the role. It is, of course, entirely necessary, and without the role A&E would have no support for their IT system and no development or growth of the application would be able to take place. Certainly there are projects within the role that are significant, such as the HRGv4 or the Injury Prevention scheme. The trust is moving to a new system called Millennium Cerner in May so there has been quite a bit of work in preparation for the move.

How important do you see the role of Thinkshield in the hospital?

My role, as part of Thinkshield, is integral to A&E. Without such support existing, as I mentioned, there would be little or no development with the application. Thinkshield, on a much wider scale, has a significant presence and influence within the Trust, managing one of the two main integration engines, as well as providing Applications support for Telecare. They also are involved in the community cardiology project, which is part of the Imperial Trust.