Enabling Digital Transformation in the NHS via Digital Health

The healthcare services provided by the NHS have long been critical to the provision of life-changing therapies and transforming the lives of millions of patients throughout England. Making sure that these services continue is essential to ensuring that England’s healthcare sector continues to transform the lives of patients and communities. The contemporary healthcare landscape has undergone a significant shift in recent years, however, presenting a number of challenges to the NHS when it comes to adapting to and accommodating these changes.

Digitalising the NHS ?has emerged as one of the healthcare sector’s foremost priorities. Digital health is absolutely fundamental to facilitating the digital transformation of the NHS, transforming such areas as shared care records, population health management, telehealth, remote monitoring, genomics, artificial intelligence as well as big data.?Digital health technologies are crucial ?to facilitating the digitalization projected to occur in the healthcare sector in the next decade, spearheaded by developments in policy, frameworks and services.

Redefining healthcare in the 21st?century

Traditional?models of healthcare ?are expensive and time-consuming, expending significant resources and struggling to navigate the rising demand from increasingly complex stakeholder expectations and patient requirements.?The cost of healthcare is continuing to rise ?at an unprecedented pace as well, something which is further compounded by the costs of appointments and admissions, regulating and monitoring patients, the necessity of establishing meaningful outcomes as well as the need to demonstrate the financial viability of novel initiatives.

Digital health promises to address such issues as widening health inequalities, extended waiting times, high rates of non-attendance, hospital readmissions and suboptimal care – many of which were brought to the forefront due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Innovations and developments in digital health are already driving progress forward, and the digital transformation of the NHS is providing patients with better access to healthcare, an enhanced quality of care, improved availability of resources and advice as well as optimised patient outcomes.

Shared Care Records

The primary purpose of shared care records ?is to encourage collaborative partnerships between government departments, health and social care providers and community organisations so that they can improve services and outcomes for patients. By integrating digital technologies, shared care records can be rolled out throughout NHS services and facilities - enabling real-time communication and the rapid processing of data. Numerous providers within the NHS continue to adhere to traditional procedures when it comes to research and development, but optimum efficiency and performance can only be achieved once shared care records are effectively integrated throughout its systems.

Digital health technologies comprise the basis of shared care records ,?because they provide the infrastructure required to construct functional information systems and ensure interoperability between systems, providers and patients, whilst also addressing ethical issues such as quality of care, confidentiality and privacy. Evidently, digital health has the potential to seamlessly harmonise and integrate NHS services throughout England by storing patient data within a centralised national database, streamlining patient care pathways, reducing waiting times, alleviating pressure on the NHS and enhancing diagnosis and treatment.

These developments in shared care records will also facilitate enhanced population health management. Through population health initiatives, the NHS can better understand the health profiles and needs of its patients and use this understanding to derive solutions and strategies which will?improve?patient?health outcomes. ?Population health management is informed by historical and current data concerning patient’s health and their uptake of and response to healthcare services – which is then used to create preventative models of healthcare.?Integrating?digital health ?means that this data can be rapidly generated, organised and managed within a centralised location, and easily accessed when it is needed.

This will also allow the NHS to establish?collaborative partnerships ?with government departments, private organisations, councils, schools, social services as well as local individuals and communities. With the assistance of digital health technologies, these partnerships can exchange information and resources in order to tailor healthcare services to the needs of particular populations and patients, improve overall health, prevent illness and properly allocate NHS resources wherever and whenever they are needed. The basis of population health is that?prevention is the first line of defence ?against disease and illness, and this approach has the potential to transform the long-term clinical outcomes of a healthcare system’s entire patient cohort.

Telehealth

Telehealth is a particularly promising application of digital health initiatives – it has emerged as a resourceful and convenient alternative to in-person appointments, hospital admissions, patient monitoring, and inter-service collaboration. What’s more, this remote format is not only advantageous for patients, but for clinicians and facilities as well when it comes to resources, funding and timing. Telehealth is already revolutionising the fundamental structures of the healthcare industry, especially as part of a patient-centric approach to healthcare that will result in the dissemination of effective therapies and meaningful outcomes.

Remove digital health technologies are essential ?to facilitating the digital transformation projected to occur in England’s healthcare sector in the next decade, as outlined within the NHS Long Term Plan. Telehealth can make healthcare more efficient, give patients more control over their care and many patients now prefer virtual consultations and online applications to in-person appointments because of their accessibility and affordability.??Telehealth emphasises?adaptability and innovation ?through self-management and remote monitoring, which in turn empowers patients to actively participate in, understand and control their healthcare.

At the moment, telehealth has been most widely used for remote appointments and online consultations, which have been important elements of the digital transformation of the NHS. The immense impact of the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital health technologies for the purpose of facilitating remote monitoring. The advantages associated with it are numerous, for example it?protects?the most clinically vulnerable patients ?by reducing the number of in-person appointments and unexpected hospital admissions. Moreover, remote monitoring provides advanced support to patients with chronic conditions by providing them with the information and the resources they need to manage and understand their conditions independently.

It’s success thus far offers an?insightful blueprint ?outlining the way in which digital health may be further expanded in the future within additional care pathways and specialised services. Remote monitoring has been successfully applied to?a variety of patient cohorts , including patients with chronic conditions, patients with disabilities, patients who have been discharged after surgery, as well as elderly patients. It also furthers?one of the key ambitions of the NHS ,?which is minimising disruptive treatments and interventions so that patients do not have to experience significant interruptions to their normal lives during or following diagnosis and treatment. Rather than being confined within a clinical environment, patients are given the autonomy to remain within their preferred environment – thereby improving health outcomes.

Genomics

Genomic medicine ?is undoubtedly one of the 21st century’s greatest medical innovations, and the NHS is leading the way when it comes to incorporating genomics into its digital health initiatives. Essentially, genomics is the study of an organism’s genome in order to understand its structure, function, evolution and the ways in which it may be mapped or edited. With rapid advancements in genomic medicine, NHS patients are already starting to benefit from access to pioneering research and state-of-the-art technologies within their care. Genomics enable the accurate and timely diagnosis of conditions, as well as the personalisation and tailoring of treatment.??

Genomics will undoubtedly have an immense impact when it comes to enhancing efficiency and precision in healthcare.?This field accommodates?a?truly?tailored approach? to healthcare, and the value which personalised diagnosis and treatment could bring to the entirety of the NHS is immense. As the technology is further improved, genomic medicine will streamline diagnosis, facilitate predictive and preventative care, personalise medicine and integrate genomic research with the delivery of healthcare. The?possibilities associated with genomics ?are endless and ground-breaking, vastly enhancing the quality of life and prognosis for countless patients throughout England.

Artificial Intelligence

It has long been recognised that AI has the potential to revolutionise and transform digital health in ways which are truly unprecedented and unexpected. It has emerged as an incredibly promising solution to the most pressing concerns and difficulties facing the NHS in the 21st?century. AI, for example, will allow the conservation of and then the reallocation of funding to relevant areas, facilitate speedy diagnosis and treatment, as well as enhance patient experiences and outcomes. One area within which artificial intelligence is having a particularly pronounced impact is within diagnostics, especially when it comes to interpreting images from?CT scans as well as X-rays .

In terms of digital health, the applications of AI are widespread, and extend far beyond the specialist field of diagnostics. For example, it has the potential to reduce waiting times, quicken the pace for diagnosis and treatment and mitigate health inequalities. AI-driven digital health technologies can also take over administrative and repetitive tasks, reducing the workload on qualified staff and allowing them to focus their cognitive and practical abilities on more complex and urgent tasks.?Machine learning ?is another clinical area which has benefited immensely from AI – with algorithms screening images and then flagging any images which may be concerning or abnormal to human clinicians.

Through accelerating the cycle times for patient diagnosis and treatment, artificial intelligence will result in increased patient engagement, optimise the work of healthcare professionals, allow the monitoring of patients remotely and in real-time, reduce the impact of non-adherence and non-compliance, centralise patient data within national databases, and lessen the waste of various resources.??With these technologies, the NHS can make leaps and bounds in areas such as data management, diagnostics and treatments. They will also allow the NHS to arrange and manage its resources more effectively, and there is certainly the possibility that AI will facilitate a new generation of medical breakthroughs.

Big Data

The NHS is an enormous and complicated?organisation , and it generates massive streams of big data on a daily basis. Directing and storing this information in a centralised location is a challenging task, especially because independent providers have to manage the portfolios of thousands of diverse vendors, patients and resources at a time. Bringing these parts together within a single interoperable system is a significant undertaking, but digital transformation will only be possible when these systems are made to be entirely interoperable and big data is effectively managed and easily accessed.

This is where digital health initiatives ?come in, especially with regards to interoperability and the electronic sharing of health-related data between facilities and staff for the purpose of informing research, development, diagnosis and treatment. Ensuring the seamless flow of big data is pivotal to creating an effective digital healthcare model, enhancing the delivery of care and optimising patient outcomes. Establishing interoperability within IT systems and the data which the NHS generates has long been one of its foremost ambitions, primarily by encouraging vendors to simplify and adopt a standardised framework when it comes to recording and interpreting big data.

With the assistance of various digital technologies, clinicians and patients can exchange real-time, reliable and accurate clinical information. Digital health has transformed the way in which services are delivered to patients throughout the NHS. By enabling providers and professionals to access relevant diagnostic and clinical data, it creates the perfect environment for a collaborative and integrated approach to healthcare. Access to real-time patient data has enabled healthcare providers to track and monitor patients and manage their care remotely. There is massive potential to apply the same, data-driven approach across patient care delivery which, by exchanging data between different health and care organisations, could support earlier interventions, improve patient outcomes and alleviate pressure on limited resources.

Conclusion

Integrating digital?health?within the NHS ?is pivotal to ensuring that the NHS becomes a resilient institution - one which continue to provide quality and accessible care even in the midst of critical political, economic and technological change. Innovative and progressive models of healthcare are continually emerging and evolving in conjunction with advances in digital technologies, driving digital transformation and digital health solutions. The only way in which a truly digital healthcare model can be realised is if there is a systematic and ongoing effort to reconcile technology with healthcare in order to ensure?the delivery of the future vision for the NHS .

By embedding digital health solutions firmly within research and development and the delivery of routine and specialised services, the myriad of opportunities and options that would become available to the NHS would be endless, vastly increasing efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to allocating resources and enhancing patient outcomes. It is critical that the progress which was achieved during the Covid-19 pandemic is maintained in order to sustain this digital transformation. The proliferation of digital health has initiated a paradigm shift within health systems throughout the world, and it is essential that the NHS builds upon this momentum and continues to develop digital technologies and deliver them via digital solutions. Amidst this accelerated pace of digitalization, the predominant model of healthcare can be transformed and become a catalyst for meaningful and impactful change.

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