What makes a digital solution fit-for-purpose?
By Elliott Engers
The value of the global digital heath market is set to surpass £320 billion by 2027. In the UK alone, the figure is set to exceed a value of £21 billion - more than seven times what it was in 2017.
From managing appointments, to logging lateral flow test results, to managing long-term health conditions, patients are sharing more and more of their health information directly with individual healthcare professionals and organisations. But healthcare professionals’ experiences of actually accessing and using this data in a joined up way are still lacking.
Often they still have to rely on outdated and analogue tools to manage their workload, using paper “to-do” lists and logging into multiple systems to get the information they need. They have poor access to real-time essential information about patients, which creates extra work, impacts patient safety, and has negative consequences for stress and mental wellbeing; 92% of trusts in 2021 have concerns about staff wellbeing, particularly following the pandemic.
The perfect digital solution for health and care staff
From the lead Neurosurgeon at London’s busiest hospital, to the Hospital Porter in rural Yorkshire, to the Community Midwife in Newcastle, fit-for-purpose digital healthcare solutions need to be made available to all healthcare professionals regardless of their location and speciality. Digital tools can make a significant difference to staff needing to access critical patient information from the point of care.
Infinity for example, is a digital platform on which healthcare staff can log, share, and coordinate information with colleagues without having to be in the same physical location. It is accessible from any modern device, and using it creates a virtual team where staff can easily and safely collaborate in caring for patients. Infinity enables staff from multiple specialties or even multiple organisations to work together, and also allows senior colleague to provide support to more junior staff.
Considerations for new digital healthcare solutions
When thinking about introducing a new digital solution for their workforce, digital teams of course think about the potential benefits and costs. They consider critical factors like integration, information security, and patient safety.
Often these factors are considered dull and technical, but getting them right is absolutely critical to making digital healthcare solutions safe and fit-for-purpose. It’s what separates digital health technology from solutions in other industries. As Martin Bell put in a recent interview with Infinity Health: “if there are no pilots for a plane then the plane simply doesn't fly. But in healthcare if you don't do it right, people will die.”
Integration
Not all digital tools for health and care staff require integration, but appropriate integration with existing systems can ensure that healthcare information is shared quickly and with the relevant people. Integration is also vital for cross-organisation information sharing, something that is becoming increasingly important as Integrated Care Systems (ICSs)spread across the country.
A fit-for-purpose digital healthcare solution for staff should be HL7 FHIR interoperable, allowing the right information to be available to the right member of healthcare staff at the right time, so they can make fully-informed decisions about patient care.
Infinity’s digital task or caseload management solution integrates with a PAS and EPR systems, enabling partners caring for the same patient to see and edit care plans, share and update tasks, and keep track of what has been done for each patient and when – all in real-time. Trusts such as Somerset Foundation Trust are already putting it to good use across out of hours teams, and London North West University Healthcare Trust is utilising it to realise the objective of more integrated and coordinated care in the community.
Information security
Digital tools have the benefit of being securely accessible from anywhere, are often flexible, and require significantly less administration time to manage processes than analogue methods. They also often generate huge amounts of data, which can be highly valuable to health and care providers looking to improve their services and processes. Task management data collected through Infinity for example, can be used to plan staff rotas according to need, improve hospital patient flow, and reduce bed blocking.
Data security is a key concern for digital healthcare solutions, and this includes not only how data is collected and stored, but also how it is shared. A fit-for-purpose digital health solution provider, like Infinity Health, regularly performs Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), publishes a DSP Toolkit, and is ISO 27001 certified.
Patient safety
NHS England’s Deputy Chief Nursing Officer said that patient safety “is the whole point of healthcare”, yet 40% of patients globally are harmed in primary and outpatient healthcare and 15% of hospital expenditure in the OECD - which includes the UK - is as a result of adverse events.
Patient safety must be a consideration when implementing any new digital health solution. Of course, many solutions are designed to improve patient safety, but when changing or disrupting existing ways of working, there can be unintended consequences.
Organisations looking for digital solutions should therefore look at whether prospective suppliers have a clinical safety officer or other role responsible for assessing patient safety and working with the customer to ensure they are adequately mitigated. Regular reviews of the product and new features to assess the impact are essential.
At Infinity Health for example, we have a dedicated Clinical Director who is responsible for clinical safety. Dr Jo Garlandworks closely with patient safety, digital, and team leads within NHS organisations to ensure safe deployment of Infinity and create and manage a risk log.
[Patient safety article image and link: https://infinity.health/news/five-ways-to-improve-patient-safety-in-hospitals][Whatsapp article image and link]
About the Author
Elliott Engers
Elliott co-founded Infinity Health in 2014 following a conversation with an NHS doctor who was battling with the paper task lists and handwritten notes commonly used in hospitals to manage daily tasks. Elliott saw that this was a technical challenge a startup could really contribute to. He set out to make task management safer and more efficient whilst improving clinicians’ experience of their crucial, high-pressure roles; Infinity Health was born.
Elliott began his working life at Virgin Records – first in the post room and subsequently the UK marketing team. He moved on to run a digital agency, building websites and communities for media companies and running technical IT projects.
He brings his technical knowledge and skills, and love of technology, to Infinity Health, setting the direction and leading the team to deliver a platform that could improve the experience of every member of health and care staff.
