Holyrood's first annual Digital Health & Care Awards
Holyrood celebrated those who are leading the transition to digital solutions with the first ever Digital Health and Care Awards, which were presented at a glittering ceremony at the Sheraton Hotel in Edinburgh. The judges were faced with a strong field of nominations from the NHS, local authorities and the third sector.
Patient Centred Award
WINNER: TEC Team featuring Dr David Ross, NHS Western Isles
People in the Western Isles have had difficulty accessing hospital-centred care because of difficult travel between and within the islands. The team devolved consultant-led telehealth to community hospitals throughout the islands and to patients’ homes using accessible software and remote diagnostics. This is especially effective for urgent referrals, with convenient and rapid assessment reducing anxiety.
Not only was patient feedback excellent; significant travel cost and time savings are reinvested into patient care. Other services have been impacted, such as rheumatology and smoking cessation and reduced pressure on primary care.
Data Insight Award
WINNER: SCS Quality Improvement Team, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
The NHSGGC Specialist Children’s Services (SCS) Quality Improvement Team used NHS data to generate neighbourhood profiles to map data at a very local level, and demonstrate need and demand within areas.
Neighbourhood profiles are used to highlight population based trends, as well as supporting comparisons locally and relative to board wide benchmarks. This means managers can plan how resources are used in specific areas and also serves to highlight local inequalities.
As a result of this innovative data analysis, locally developed service improvement action plans have been designed by clinical teams and service managers. This has allowed clinicians to supplement neighbourhood profile data with their local knowledge, such as availability of resources, service issues and geographical issues. The plans are designed to reduce health inequalities by improving access to and the quality of services where issues have arisen at neighbourhood level that may have previously been missed in broader service wide data analysis.
Data modelling at this level of granularity and on this scale has not been used before in children’s services in Scotland, and is beginning to provide some fascinating results.
Mobile Health Award
WINNER: Tayside Condom Initiative, Sexual Health & Blood Borne Virus MCN, NHS Tayside
Across Tayside there are 205 condom distribution points, but young people reported they didn’t know where to find free condoms.
In 2016 the Tayside Condom Initiative (NHS Tayside) and Zudu embarked on a ground-breaking project with NHS Tayside to build Scotland’s first ever Free Condom Finder app, aimed at young people aged 13 to 24 years old. This innovative mobile app project utilised gamification, smart analytics and cryptography in order to achieve one clear goal: to educate young people about sex and foster safe, consensual relationships whilst safeguarding their sexual health by providing access to free condoms and support.
Digital Innovation Award
WINNER: Loretto Care Team, TEC and Innovation Programme
The initiative enables people to be safe and well at home for longer, the place they have stated they wish to be, closer to family, friends and community. This is achieved by making better use of existing resources and promoting self-management through users self-serving information from digital kiosks throughout Glasgow which are updated locally to provide better information around services and activities available to mainly older people in their community.
Project Delivery Award
WINNER: Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, SCTT/NHS 24
Depression and anxiety are two of the biggest public health challenges in Scotland. Traditional approaches to treatment cannot meet the increasing demand for services with costs becoming unsustainable and wide reaching economic impact being felt in the health and care system and beyond.
cCBT is a large scale, high capacity technological solution for the treatment of depression and anxiety.
cCBT helps to deliver a range of strategic priorities. Supporting delivery of the national Mental Health strategy, providing an excellent example of NHS 24’s contribution to the expansion of digital health and care services across Scotland.
Digital Health and Care Team Award
WINNER: Lanarkshire Telehealth Team, NHS Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire’s telehealth team has introduced and scaled up a range of innovations under the umbrella of technology enabled care.
Amongst the benefits being realised are improved levels of long-term condition self-management, staff and service users not using their valuable time travelling to clinics/meetings/training venues, and residents in care homes linking together to reduce isolation.
The Digital Impact Award
WINNER: Dr Lesley Holdsworth, eHealth Clinical Lead for the Scottish Government
Lesley Holdsworth is an innovative digital champion who has led during a challenging transition to digital service delivery with excellent results and impact on services.
The Digital Leadership Award
WINNER: Christopher Wroath, Director of Digital Transformation for NHS Education for Scotland
Christopher Wroath has played a key role in creating the conditions required to deliver health and social care services digitally on a national level.
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