REPORT
The Digital Future
for Health and Social Care
Realising the Potential for Digital Footprints in Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships
Published:
26 June 2017
The aim of this report was to present a new model for integration and innovation in health and social care that uses collaboration to create a unified, cross sector strategy to estates and infrastructure as the catalyst to meet the current financial and service demand challenges.
OVERVIEW
The study, undertaken for Sopra Steria, warns that recent cyber-attacks on the NHS only serve to demonstrate the urgent need for a robust and safe system for sharing data that recognises the rapid move towards greater integration of services.
The authors found broader application and use of digital technologies as key enablers in STPs could ensure benefits across a range of areas and lead to the delivery of more responsive, personalised, and cost-effective services.
MAJOR BARRIERS IDENTIFIED
- data systems that cannot communicate with each other across organisations or sectors;
- limited understanding that service users, patients and the public have of the benefits that digital technologies can bring.
ENABLERS FOR CHANGE
- ensuring more intelligent and better use of data, in particular improving the interoperability of data system to enable greater sharing of patient and service user data across systems, organisations and sectors;
- supporting service users, patients and public to adopt and use new technologies that can enhance their ability to manage their own care and live independently;
- strengthening integration across health, social care and related public, social and private sectors, where digital innovations can break down organisational boundaries;
MAJOR RECOMMENDATIONS
- Perceived and actual financial challenges in the health and social care sectors need not impede the much-needed investment of effort and resources into digital technologies – which have the capacity to alleviate financial pressures
- The depth and breadth of data collected by the public sector is potentially the greatest asset for driving digital innovation in the health and social care sectors.
- To make the most of this latent potential, health and social care services should, with sufficient and robust data protection, be more open in sharing their wealth of data with the wider public sector and commercial providers.
- Delivering digital innovation in the health system is not, primarily, an issue of developing or commissioning new technology; the tools are available and proven. Instead, successful digital innovation in health and social care will require a cultural change across the entire interdependent network of public, private and third-sector partners.
