Given the broad remit of bioinformatics it is imperative for employers to recruit for their particular needs and assess how best to integrate bioinformaticians into the workplace. They need to ask themselves:
• What is the task at hand? Although generally bioinformaticians are proficient at computational assignments, their role can become confused with other distinct yet complementary fields. For example building a software tool with a user interface as part of a new diagnostic test (software engineer) or creating a website for accessing a repository of pathology test results (website developer) do not necessarily require a grounding in ‘bio sciences’, and may be better suited to specifically trained individuals than bioinformaticians.
• What ‘type’ of bioinformatician is needed? Bioinformatician is a catch all term and may not be a useful descriptor when recruiting for different roles within health services - a ‘bioinformatician’ competent at creating databases and data archiving won’t necessarily have the skills to analyse and interpret the data sets they create.
• How many bioinformaticians? It might be tempting to view bioinformaticians as a ‘Swiss army knife’ profession where one ‘tool’ can perform a multiplicity of jobs. In reality, introduction of innovative analytical technologies, such as genomics and Proterozoic into healthcare are likely to require multiple bioinformaticians with different skill-sets at different stages of implementation and service delivery.
• What equipment will be needed? As with other scientific disciplines bioinformaticians require dedicated tools to perform their role. Access to suitable computational hardware, data storage capacity and servers, are just some of the fundamental structures.
• How can we enable collaboration? Fostering interaction between bioinformaticians in different organisations, both within the health service and in academia, will enable adoption of best practices and collaboration to deliver innovation. Promoting this may be particularly important where bioinformaticians are recruited in isolation.
• How can we support continued professional development (CPD)? Given the ever evolving nature of bio sciences data, an environment conducive to CPD is key to attracting and retaining talent, as well as sustaining innovation.
