John Chelsom

Dr. John Chelsom has worked for over 30 years in the field of Health Informatics. He qualified with a degree in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford and a PhD from City University, London, where he studied the application of artificial intelligence in medicine.

In the 1990's he was heavily involved in the application of open standards for structured information (SGML, then XML) in the publishing, automotive and healthcare sectors. He started a company which developed the first web-based Electronic Health Records product deployed in the England's National Health Service (NHS). This product went on to form the foundation of the Summary Care Record in NHS England's National Programme for IT, starting in 2004.

As well as EHR systems, John was also responsible for the first online versions of the BMJ's Clinical Evidence product, the first XML production system for the British National Formulary and was a proposer of the Open Document Format for Office Applications.

In 2010, he started the Open Health Informatics research programme at City University, London, looking to address the causes of failure of the National Programme for IT. This research led to the development of the open source cityEHR – an ontology-based health records system, based on open standard, interfaces and development practices. cityEHR is now deployed as an operational EHR in several hospitals in England and is used for teaching students in health informatics.