Tim Benson

CEO R-Outcomes Ltd
07855 682037
https://r-outcomes.com
tim.benson@r-outcomes.com

Tim Benson has a long history as a pragmatic and successful innovator in health and care.He was originally trained as a mechanical engineer (Vickers Undergraduate and Postgraduate scholarships) at Nottingham University, where be built one of the first hovercraft outside the aerospace industry (BSc, MSc) and in Systems at the Open University (BA).

He led the computer evaluation unit at the Charing Cross Hospital (Fulham) where he introduced market research techniques. He set up the first independent GP supplier. There, innovations included the Read Codes and easy to use consulting room systems.

He led the first EU-funded project team, which set out the need for open standards in health interoperability. He was the first convenor of the European working group responsible for health interoperability (CEN TC251 WG3), which produced European standards for clinical test requests and reports, admission and discharge letters and full patient records, which are still used today. Short-sightedly, the NHS IMC declared victory and cut off funding in 1996, beginning a steady decline. He also worked with the Cabinet Office and the Office of Government Commerce on e-Commerce standards.

He has written over 100 papers and books (85% as lead author), with more than 1,700 citations (source: Google Scholar). He as organised many courses and conferences on standards and interoperability. He is a certified trainer with TAP (Trainer Assessment Program).  He has an honorary role at the Institute of Health Informatics, UCL, London. He is a patient leader at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

He set up R-Outcomes Ltd in Newbury to create a new generation of measures and services for patient-reported outcomes and experience.  R-Outcomes has worked across the whole health and social care spectrum in the UK and Internationally, including primary care, secondary care, community care, mental health, domiciliary and social care, voluntary organisations, and care homes.

He is author of Patient-Reported Outcomes and Experience: measure what we want from PROMs and PREMs (Springer April 2022). He is lead author of Principles of Health Interoperability FHIR HL7 and SNOMED CT. The fourth edition, with Grahame Grieve,  was published by Springer 2021, including full details of FHIR Release 4.