Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) has published its first digital strategy, setting out plans up to 2030 for the future of digital within the organisation in areas in areas including self-care, remote monitoring and access to records, designed to help NCA “keep up with the ever-changing needs of patients and service users”.
The strategy focuses in particular on the next three years, with the aim of establishing the foundations for a “safe and more effective NCA”. These foundations are to be achieved primarily through the implementation of a single EPR solution across all acute hospitals, with the programme set to commence during 2024 with a targeted go-live in 2027. Additionally, NCA plans to establish a single community services EPR intending to strengthen NCA’s connectivity to its places; this programme aims to commence in 2025. Once these foundations have been achieved, the trust expects to gain “greater clarity regarding the transformational opportunities that exist and will form the basis of an iterative and evolving digital strategy”.
NCA’s vision statement for its digital future includes standardised digital patient record provision; a single and fit-for-purpose digital user experience; increasing digital literacy; and operation as a data-driven organisation.
To achieve this, alongside implementing the EPR across acute hospitals and single community EPR, planned actions include implementing a single sign-on solution; delivering consistent, fit-for-purpose WiFi across the trust; delivering modern end user computing; implementing a single service desk across the NCA; developing and implementing a ‘people and digital skills development’ strategy; improving data quality; and ensuring accessible and consistent data collection, management and reporting.
The strategy highlights how NCA has used Gartner’s Run-Grow-Transform model to shape its plans, with the strategy focusing “almost wholly” on the grow phase over the coming three years. A components of this will see the establishment of a single digital services team, designed to align all technology teams across NCA into a single function whilst ensuring a voice to clinicians in how digital services are provided.
Additionally, NCA plans to drive rationalisation of digital systems to reduce its server footprint, readying itself to transition towards cloud-hosted solutions and away from the need to maintain a “considerable” datacentre. Clinical application systems are also to be rationalised, with NCA to focus on where improvements can be made to overall colleague and patient experience in advance of EPR implementation. This will include identifying duplication and setting out a data strategy to support the development and enhancement of data quality, insight and analytics, driving a “thorough data cleanse” as a key deliverable.
Work will go into supporting all colleagues to be able to access a consistent device and one IT account regardless of location; and NCA pledges to continue to invest in and strengthen its cyber security solutions. Improving user experience will also see work across NCA to streamline and provide patient portal services; drive improved linkage between community teams and acute clinical solutions; improve collaboration with provider trusts and other partners to support the regional digital strategy; and shape the people and skills strategy within the digital department.
With regards to the ‘transform’ phase, the trust recognises that the establishment of an NCA-wide EPR – alongside existing work to establish a trust-wide laboratory information management system – will be the biggest transformation enablers. NCA’s wider transformation aims include significantly reducing and streamlining the existing digital application patchwork within its hospitals, and reducing more than 380 different clinical systems to support improved efficiencies and effectiveness.
Other transformation activities are laid out in the strategy such as fully mapping the existing digital application systems and setting out a clear transformation roadmap; adopting and considering a cloud-first strategy for all new digital systems; aligning to a clear data strategy; seeking to attain HIMSS EMRAM Level 7; supporting a clinically-led organisational culture by ensuring digital meets the needs of its users; and enabling clinically-led digital innovation with the aim of improving services.
In terms of timeline, early 2025 expects to see delivery of streamlined user-log in across system, implementation of a single service desk across NCA, delivery of improved Wi-Fi and delivery of modern end user computing. Work to improve data quality in preparation for EPR implementation has already commenced and will continue during 2024-25, with a detailed data strategy currently in development. NCA is also working on a roadmap and delivery plan for the digital strategy this year.
Looking ahead to expected benefits, NCA highlights that at present, the trust spends three percent of its annual revenue budget on the digital and informatics function. Whilst modernisation will “inevitably place further pressure on budgets”, this “must be alleviated through efficiencies and savings that improved systems bring for the wider organisation,” NCA states, adding: “We must ensure strong linkage in our digital solutions to overall cost savings for the organisation and together enable increased efficiencies and effectiveness.”
The strategy can be found in full here.
Strategies in the spotlight
HTN has explored a number of new strategies over recent weeks, including the operational plan and quality and improvement strategy from Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals, setting out ambitions around digital, innovation, and use of data.
NHSE highlighted implementation plans for the primary care implementation of the NHS patient safety strategy here, noting the role of digital and data in areas such as automatically flagging patient safety issues to support reliability, and supporting clinical decision-making by digitally embedding diagnosis advice and safety netting.
We looked into Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s maternity service strategy for 2024-2029, highlighting innovation and technology as key enablers to develop the service and noting plans to launch a new maternity end-to-end electronic patient record in 2025.
And from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust, we examined the new strategy for 2024-2030, with digital and data highlighted as one of nine “essential focus areas”.
