Digital has an incredible potential to transform the way that the NHS delivers care and supports its staff. Digital solutions provide an opportunity to help meet some of the key priorities for the NHS. In recent years, innovations in digital technology have supported the rise of virtual outpatient appointments, the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is beginning to ease the burden on repetitive tasks, and machine learning is revolutionising the way we are able to understand the wealth of data that the NHS collects.
There have been a number of key documents and initiatives published nationally that emphasise the importance of digital in the future of care delivery and how organisations should work to design digital into care delivery:
The NHS Long term plan five digital transformation priorities
1. Empowering people
People will be empowered, and their experience of health and care will be transformed, by the ability to access, manage and contribute to digital tools, information and services.
2. Supporting health and care professionals
The information technology revolution in the NHS also needs to make it a more satisfying place for our staff to work.
3. Supporting clinical care
Patients, clinicians and the carers working with them will have technology designed to help them, through digitisation of records, EPRs and modern IT infrastructure.
4. Improving population health
Shared care records and population health management solutions will support ICSs to understand the areas of greatest health need and match NHS services to meet them.
5. Improving clinical efficiency and safety
Digital technology can support the NHS to deliver high quality specialist care more efficiently, including digitising diagnostic images, and the use of wearable technology.
Next steps for digital in Integrating Care Systems
1. Build smart digital and data foundations
Building shared infrastructure, contracts and platforms across systems, creating data and digital literacy of the whole workforce. Having a system-wide digital transformation plans to complement organisational plans that outlines the three-year journey that will benefit the citizens who live in the system.
2. Connect health and care services
Develop a shared care record that safely joins records across health and social care, supplemented by following national standards for digital, data and interoperability. Tools and services are in place to work collaboratively across a system.
3. Use digital and data to transform care
Redesigning care pathways to make use of digital solutions to join care up and improve outcomes. Building cross-system data and analytical functions to enable data-driven decision-making at every level.
4. Put the citizen at the centre of their care
Develop citizen-centred digital channels and services with personalised advice, enhanced by remote monitoring solutions.
NHS service design principles
- Put people at the heart of everything you do.
- Design for the outcome.
- Be inclusive.
- Design for context.
- Design for trust.
- Test your assumptions.
- Make, learn, iterate.
- Do the hard work to make it simple.
- Make things open, it makes things better.