Last month Humber and North Yorkshire ICB shared an update on their digital strategy, laying out their digital transformation investment plan (DTIP) and intentions for the future.
The DTIP aims to “align all partner organisation digital approaches, cyber plans, data management, information governance approaches and technology provision”, whilst ensuring that there is appropriate governance in place to oversee delivery, achievement and challenges, and also to regularly review progress.
Roadmap, 2023 to 2025
A roadmap captures their key milestones and flags activities as low, medium or high priority.
Financial year 2023/24 includes high priorities for establishing digitally mature and enabled domiciliary care; developing uniform cyber security across the wider ICS; working on earlier and fast diagnosis of cancer through digital tools; improving and expanding digital inclusion initiatives; and enhancing video consultation capabilities.
Medium priorities in this time period include establishing patient held records within acute care settings; completing the design of the future model of hospital care; establishing an integrated data warehouse across the ICS; centralising and standardising ICS procurement functions for digital; embedding an integrated palliative care record; focusing on digitally enabled leaders through a leadership programme; providing digital professional development for staff; and developing a digitally enabled and optimised voluntary and community care sector.
Looking ahead to financial year 2025 and beyond, ICS main priorities include simplifying infrastructure across the ICS through a Technical Infrastructure Collaborative; ensuring digitally enabled mental health services; developing the acute diagnostic service and community diagnostics; establishing an integrated any-to-any referral platform for the ICS; implementing a clinical messaging solution; ensuring interoperability between acute maternity units; and providing digital patient tracking and support to those living with cancer. In addition, as high priority, the ICS will continue to work on digitally enabling the voluntary and community care sector with an aim to achieve a core level of digitisation for community providers, and will ensure an integrated, collaborative EPR is in place.
Priorities for this time period flagged as medium importance include establishing system-wide use of Waiting Well for enhanced risk stratification; embedding a population health management platform; ensuring region-wide use of the patient held record; implementing a sustainable and digitally enabled clinical placement circuit; and ensuring consistent utilisation of N365 across the ICS. Priorities at the lower end of the spectrum include established combined ICS business intelligence reporting, driving innovation across the ICS, establishing robotic process automation and AI capability, and providing digital access to the ‘red book’ or personal child health record.
EPR update
Alongside developing their EPR roadmap and levelling up constituent organisations without in EPR, the ICS shares its collective commitment to achieve HIMSS Level 5 by December 2023.
The system plans to implement architecture to “optimise the benefits of our partner organisations’ deployment of comprehensive electronic health and care records”, along with seeking out opportunities to extend digitisation of children’s services and records. In addition, they plan to “mirror the approach adopted by the national Digitisation Social Care Records programme to improve access and sharing of social care information.”
Shared care record update
The ICS also provides an update on their work around the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record (YHCR).
Humber Teaching Hospitals is sharing and viewing information via the YHCR, with York & Scarborough, Northern Lincolnshire and Google and Harrogate District hospitals all live and viewing GP Connect. Their acute hospitals are starting to share data that is accessible by GPs, community, adult social care and mental health.
End-of-life wishes are being shared with paramedics from Yorkshire Ambulance Service and East Midlands Ambulance Service. Yorkshire Ambulance Service is also providing transfer of care data to acute trusts.
North Yorkshire County Council is providing adult social care information, and five local authorities have access to the YHCR to see healthcare information about their service users.
The YHCR Interweave Portal is currently in the process of being rolled out to all GP practices; as of February, it had been rolled out at 104 of the 176 practices.
Looking to the future, the City Health Care Partnership frailty team “will soon be live with notifications of a change in admission and discharge status for their patients to hospital,” the update states, which will reduce unnecessary visits by community teams and free up time.
To view the update in full, please click here.
