DHI is delighted to contribute to this new special report examining the digital healthcare landscape in Scotland.
In this special report HTN examines the landscape of digital healthcare in Scotland now at present and for the future, as well as speaking to representatives from the Scottish Government, NHS National Services Scotland and Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, to hear their views on projects and priorities.
The report covers:
Key focuses for Scotland: Jonathan Cameron, deputy director for digital health and care at The Scottish Government
Insight from InterSystems: Colin Henderson, country manager for UK and Ireland at InterSystems UKI
How Scotland is using data for healthcare: Albert King, chief data officer at NHS National Services Scotland
NHS Scotland digital transformation – right data, right people, right place: Identity and access management Imprivata
The innovation landscape in Scotland: Grant Reilly FCIM, Head of Communications & Marketing at Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre
Digital Healthcare Innovation in Scotland:
To find out more about digital healthcare in Scotland from an innovation perspective, we spoke with Grant Reilly, Head of Communications & Marketing at Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI).
The centre is a world-leading collaboration between the Glasgow School of Art and the University of Strathclyde, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Government. With a vision of using research and innovation in digital health and social care to create sustainable services, develop future skills and positively impact people’s lives and health outcomes, DHI works with industry, health and social care providers, academia, the public sector and citizens to create collaborations and co-design person-centred solutions. Additionally, the centre undertakes its own research, facilitates international knowledge exchange and publishes academic outputs to support healthcare wherever it can.
Grant shared some of the main programmes DHI has been involved with, including SCOTCAP – the use of video capsule technology, which patients can swallow to reduce the need for invasive colonoscopy procedures: “This particularly helps people in rural communities as they travel long distances to undergo an uncomfortable and stressful procedure. By identifying people who could benefit most from this non-invasive approach, delivered in the local community, we wanted to explore whether we could speed up diagnosis, reduce the need for further invasive investigations and of course remove the need for that travel
“In this case, the camera pill technology was already there; working with a German company trialling this technology for the investigation of large bowel disease in Denmark, we identified a research team based in Inverness that was keen to transform how patients could benefit from this innovative approach. This involved the need for careful research into clinical safety and effectiveness of the investigation, but equally importantly developing an efficient service delivery model for the delivery of a community-based service that was acceptable to patients and clinicians alike. There was also a need to develop a business model that demonstrated that this approach was affordable, but that it could actually reduce the cost of the investigation and reduce the negative impact on the environment from less use of chemicals, plastics and other items needed to deliver the more invasive hospital service. We did lots of trial work up in the Highlands with remote communities to prove that it worked, and it has now been adopted and scaled across Scotland.
"Other reported benefits include enabling early and effective screening in the community; reducing the total cost of gastrointestinal diagnostics; and avoiding unnecessary referrals for outpatient appointments. We’re now looking at how we can use AI to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and speed up the delivery
of results for the patients,” Grant shared.
DHI has a research team in place, carrying out international research on behalf of project partners; and facilitates Scotland’s innovation clusters, with a focus at present on healthy ageing and digital mental health. New clusters planned for the future include diabetes and women’s health.
When it comes to the impact of DHI’s work on staff, Grant said: “We’ve developed digital tools that have supported health and social care staff at all levels in decision-making by providing decision support services – for example, dose calculators for specialist medicines, as well as instant access to national clinical guidelines and triage and assessment tools.”
For patients, he reflected that the benefits are widespread; SCOTCAP, as an example, brings many direct benefits to patients from reduced travel to reduced stress and discomfort. “We’ve also provided products for the general public to support them in making better-informed choices with regards to their own health,” he added. “We’re very citizen-focused at DHI; everything comes back to the question of how we can support patient outcomes or experience.”
On data, Grant shared that DHI is currently working on a new approach that will aim to ensure people have access to their data and information, including “grey area data” such as insights from fitness, sleep or nutrition tracking apps that the citizen may be using themselves; but may not see themselves as in control of their data. “By blending health and care data with personal data provided by the person and their families, we can better personalise services to meet their individual needs,” . Grant said. “There’s a lot of value in that data, and we want to empower patients by better utilising it. So that’s a focus for us going forward.”
On the topic of the future, Grant shared that DHI has recently been funded for a further 10 years and has developed a strategy with seven key strategic priority areas. These include supporting the transformation of health and social care; developing a digital infrastructure as national assets to de-risk innovation; enhancing Scotland’s connected ecosystem through cross-sectoral innovation clusters; developing a future skills pipeline to deliver workforce capabilities for Scotland’s future; extending commercial engagement to support economic growth; supporting health and care contribution towards net zero; and enhancing Scotland’s international reputation when it comes to research and innovation.
“Ultimately, we are bringing together the capabilities that new digital technologies can bring, with the real everyday challenges being experienced by the people of Scotland,” Grant concluded, “along with those tasked with managing and delivering services. We’re focused on designing, developing and deploying new products and services that can empower and activate people to make better-informed health and wellbeing choices, and we are focusing on prevention and keeping people healthy and happy at home and in their communities.”
Further reading
The full article can be found here: https://htn.co.uk/2024/10/14/digital-healthcare-in-scotland-news-strategies-insights-and-more/