Entries are open for the EHI Awards 2013.

This year’s awards include new categories to recognise the imperative for the NHS to improve efficiency in order to fund improvements in treatment and care.

The ‘best use of IT to support healthcare business efficiency’ award will highlight the use of IT systems and services to improve efficiency at NHS trusts and other organisations.

While the ‘best use of IT to support clinical treatment and care’ will complement this category by focusing on the use of IT to re-engineer treatment pathways and / or free up time for frontline staff to focus on patient care.

The other nine categories in this year’s awards will focus on major projects, integration and interoperability, product innovation, mobile healthcare, social media, business intelligence, imaging informatics, patient safety, and clinical leadership in informatics.

Later in the year, eHealth Insider readers will also be able to nominate colleagues for the ‘healthcare IT champion of the year award, which is decided by the votes of EHI users.

EHI director Linda Davidson said: "The EHI Awards are always a highlight of the year, and we hope that the new categories we have introduced will make them more relevant than ever.

“In his speech on a paperless NHS, health secretary Jeremy Hunt emphasised that IT and information have a vital role to play in generating efficiency savings for the NHS that can be ploughed back into improving care for patients.

"We hope the new categories will show some of the great work that organisations are already doing in this area, and serve as inspiration for others.”

The awards will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including Neil Darvill, last year’s healthcare IT champion of the year.

Full details of how to enter are on the dedicated awards website. The awards will be presented on Thursday, 10 October 2013 at a black-tie dinner in London.

This year’s dinner will be held at the prestigious Roundhouse in North London. For information about sponsorship opportunities or booking tickets, contact our events team on 020 7785 6924.

The EHI Awards 2013 are now open for entries. For full details of this year’s categories, judging process and how to submit your entry please visit the dedicated awards website.

This year’s black tie awards dinner will be held at the prestigious Roundhouse in north London on 10 October. For information about sponsorship opportunities contact head of events Neil Hadland. Tickets will also be on sale soon.