Head of EHR Agile Delivery

at  University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

We are looking to recruit an experienced Release Train Engineer or agile coach with delivery experience to lead this function for our Electronic Health Record (EHR) team of 130+ members responsible for its workflow design, configuration, end user training and system maintenance.
Following two years of a successful journey to adopt (SAFe) agile practices for workflow and software configuration, we are now at a point where coaching the team, PI planning and Agile Release Train (ART) management is too large to share amongst the management team.
We are currently refreshing our end user governance model and introducing a Head of Product for our EHR, Epic. The next 18 months will see our EHR be expanded to another NHS Trust making the ART and PI planning more complex.
This will be a challenging role comprised of coaching and developing the EHR team, reviewing and improving our existing ways of working and adapting the ART to work in tandem with evolving Product Function.
There are also inherent challenges about the vast and complex nature of both Epic, made up a 30+ area of expertise and the acute hospital environment, made of hundreds of teams and stakeholders. These make for a very challenging environment in which to make agile successful, requiring good relationship management and adaptation from the textbook – an inflexible process approach is unlikely to be successful.
You do not need to have previous experience of the Epic system as training can be provided, however knowledge of it or another EHR is an advantage. A knowledge of, and ability to implement, coach and drive, agile and product methods will be key to success - our delivery methodology is based on https://scaledagileframework.com .
Applicants are encouraged to read the role description for further information, but this is a new role and therefore candidates should expect it to evolve over time.
The initial part of the role will be to understand the complexity or Epic and material challenges to making teams cross functional . Taking ownership for team training and working with EHR Delivery Managers you will have to formulate a plan to reduce cross-team dependencies.
From the start all our development and maintenance processes will need review and adapting to work with the new Product function as it evolves. This role will take a key leadership position in SCRUM and agile ceremony oversight, standardising delivery of business-as-usual maintenance functions and leading our twice-yearly upgrades of Epic.
In addition to facilitating the ART, you will need to balance instilling a drive and need for continuous improvement within the team, with establishing a solid and stable set of core knowledge and skills. Both in agile but also, with the EHR Delivery Managers, in release management, quality control, development approaches and design skills across the team.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is one of the most complex NHS trusts in the UK, serving a large and diverse population. We provide academically led acute and specialist services, to people from the local area, from throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. Our vision is to deliver top-quality patient care, excellent education, and world-class research.
We provide first-class acute and specialist services across eight sites:
University College Hospital (incorporating the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing)
National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals
University College Hospital Grafton Way Building
Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine
University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases
University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street
We are dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of many complex illnesses. UCLH specialises in women’s health and the treatment of cancer, infection, neurological, gastrointestinal and oral disease. It has world class support services including critical care, imaging, nuclear medicine and pathology .
We are committed to sustainability and have pledged to become a carbon net zero health service, embedding sustainable practice throughout UCLH. We have set an ambitious target of net zero for our direct emissions by 2031 and indirect emissions by 2040.
For the full Person Specification and more information regarding the main responsibilities of this role, please refer to the attached Job Description.
For the EHR team, this is also a period of growth and expansion. While this role will be focused on UCLH initially, we are expanding Epic to another NHS Trust over the next 18 months. This will evolve and expand the product and delivery space further and this role will play a pivotal part in how the development of Epic across two organisations is successfully delivered.
This role will be key in steering the evolution of the Epic Electronic Patient Record at UCLH for the 12k staff, 14 sites and 1m+ patients per year it supports.

It should be noted that this role is being introduced alongside two other roles:

• Head of Product, which is based on the SAFe Product and Lean Portfolio management functions and out to advert currently

Head of Epic Training and Adoption, which is already in post
Come and be a part of the best NHS trust in England to work for, according to our staff*

UCLH top trust to work at in England – for the second year running! : University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

• In the most recent NHS staff survey UCLH had the highest percentage of staff who said they would recommend us as a place to work, out of all general acute or acute/community NHS trusts in England – for the second year in a row.

UCLH top trust to work at in England – for the second year running ! : University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust .
Once again, UCLH has received the highest score of all general acute and acute/community NHS trusts in England for staff that would recommend us as a place to work

• Head of Product, which is based on the SAFe Product and Lean Portfolio management functions and out to advert currentl