TECHNOLOGY
working within the NHS…This could really liberate the NHS,” he commented. In order to build public trust for data sharing, the Digital Health APPG is calling for a wide-ranging public communications programme, to inform citizens of the benefits – to themselves and others – of sharing data. Patients should be consulted to ensure that an appropriate and transparent system is in place and trust is built in the data governance system. The Digital Health APPG is therefore scoping work in the following areas: l Synthesising the significant research already undertaken into public attitudes to sharing NHS/citizen data
l Full evidence inquiry involving various leading organisations and individuals to develop a full report
l Building a collaborative approach with Royal Colleges, patient organisations and third sector
l Recommendations to government on the need and methodology to deliver a broad- based communications campaign.
Dean added that accessibility is also an important issue, however: “There needs to be a level playing field for everyone. As we go forward, digital must not become something that is divisive. “People need to access healthcare in a way that is free at the point of use, without this being limited by access to resources. During the pandemic, schools sent home laptops for children to use and this has sparked a debate over who can access digital technologies – whether it is for education or health.”
New models of care
During the pandemic, the potential for digital technologies (most notably telehealth) to facilitate new models of care, became apparent to both clinicians and patients. So, could this have a lasting impact on the way patients engage with health services, in the future? “When GP surgeries first contemplated
going ‘virtual’, at the start of the pandemic, I suspect many were opposed to the idea,” Dean observed. “However, I believe that
many GPs will now want to continue with telehealth, in some form at least, and will have seen its benefits. In the future, we may find it strange that we used to make people sit in a waiting room with other unhealthy, potentially infectious patients in order to make them healthy. Perhaps there are better ways of managing the flow of people, without putting them at more risk of illness,” he commented. He added that the changes made possible during the pandemic, through digital technologies, have also raised questions around the issue of patient choice. “Giving people choice in how they want to manage their health will be important in the coming years. This will be central to empowering patients,” he asserted. “Potentially, they may be able to choose whether they travel to their GP for a face- to-face consultation or to access their appointment remotely, and whether they want to manage their condition themselves or be dictated to.”
Delivering efficiencies
Andrew explained that digital technologies could deliver significant efficiencies for the NHS. Prior to the pandemic, there were already critical workforce pressures, and this is where technology could have a
major impact. Digital technologies could ease pressures on primary care resources, by removing the need to visit the GP in person, as well as allowing clinicians in the acute hospital setting to prioritise patients according to need and freeing their time to focus on the really difficult cases. While shared care records and telehealth will arguably have the greatest impact on the NHS in the short term, there are a variety of digital technologies that could have the potential to transform healthcare delivery, which the APPG will be exploring. Andrew provided the example of
ambulatory ECG monitoring: combined with artificial intelligence to analyse the data, such devices could offer the ability to relay real-time information to the clinician to enable rapid decision-making and a faster response. “We could avoid the need for the patient to physically bring equipment back to the hospital to download the data, then having to wait for the analysis, and then wait even further for an appointment to see their GP to obtain the results. Digital technology has the potential to speed up and streamline this entire process,” commented Andrew. In fact, there are many examples of testing technologies moving out of the GP or hospital setting and into the patient’s home. NHSX, the digital transformation arm of the
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