One of the Tech Women Celebration 50 - women changing the ratio of the tech workforce
Dawn Greaves has worked in the health care sector for over 30 years and has a wealth of experience in Programme and Project Management, as well as acute sector transformation.
Dawn began her career in the NHS as a youth trainee on a two-year placement as an office junior in the HR service and worked in HR for a number of years before undertaking some IT training courses. The trainer encouraged her to apply for an IT training assistant post she was advertising which she subsequently won, and, "really enjoyed being able to help people get the best out of the tools they had access to and making their work more efficient."
Dawn moved into project and programme management. When asked what she enjoys the most, Dawn replied: "I love the feeling of knowing the systems I'm implementing are making a difference to how patients live healthier lives, and how clinicians can treat patients."
What's been her biggest achievement?
"The implementation of a single electronic patient record for maternity services at a previous Trust. This was instigated following the merger of two Trusts into a single Trust and migration from two separate maternity IT systems which only captured minimum data sets for reporting.
"I was new to project management at the time, so had been shadowing the lead project manager responsible for the delivery but early into the project I was asked to solely deliver the implementation due to unforeseen circumstances. This was a huge learning curve for me, delivering a project with many obstacles to overcome. This was a very challenging time but I learnt so many lessons that have helped me deliver other projects more smoothly since."
Dawn also believes that flexible working is crucial for enhancing workforce diversity and also for helping people keep a healthy balance in their lives.
"I allow all my team members to work flexibly to achieve a healthy work and home life balance. I have provided mentoring to a number of women who are new to our organisation, or in more junior roles, wanting to progress their careers. I like to lead by example, so I am a member of our organisation's staff network, a number of forums for women in tech also and encourage my team to join forums that they are interested in."