Background
In September 2024, we presented a draft Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) strategy to the ICB Board. We sought agreement to get the collective support of the ICS partners to fund and resource common missions/projects to enable rapid 'outcomes-focused' technological advances.
These missions aim to enhance health and wellbeing outcomes for our residents and patients. The assumption being that to deliver a positive impact we will need to tackle daily operational challenges related to accessing information and data.
We also asked for permission at the Board to do a 90-day review of our digital tools, technologies, skills, and capabilities across all of our partner organisations.
This review is now complete. We're organising all the information we gathered to share it as a 'wiki' for all stakeholders. This process has helped us understand how complex our system is, but also showed us where we should look to make improvements. Based on what we learned, we've identified three main 'missions' to focus on.
Some of these missions are more developed than others right now, especially in terms of how we'll approach them.
Mission 1 - Working Together
The Somerset Health & Care Strategy wants to make people's lives better by improving teamwork across our health system. We aim to provide a seamless experience when people need information, support, or care. It should be easy and timely, no matter which organisation is helping.
To achieve this, we'll use digital technology and data to help our teams work together better. We'll use shared digital tools and systems to communicate and work together more effectively, sharing information and ideas.
We'll create groups where colleagues can share knowledge and best practices across our health system. This will help us come up with new ideas faster and ensure high-quality digital solutions everywhere.
Lastly, we'll set up clear rules for technology projects involving different partners. This will help us use common standards and create a system to manage quality and risks.
Mission 2 - Improving Lives
Data and information help us understand what care people need and how to give them the right advice and support. This information lets us see how well we're performing as a system, and helps us take proactive steps to look after the health and wellbeing of everyone in Somerset.
We plan to create a fair and ethical system to use this data better. This system will include tools to group people with similar needs and analyse information. These tools will help us:
- Predict future health trends
- Find groups of people who might need extra help
- Take action early to prevent health problems
By using these new technologies, we want to change from just reacting to health issues to supporting the prevention of them before they happen. This approach aims to improve people's health and wellbeing in Somerset and help us use our resources more effectively.
Mission 3 - Navigating Support
We plan to make it easier for residents, patients, and healthcare providers to get important information quickly. Our goal is to help people make good choices about their health, care and wider support needs and to help them find the right support in their area. We're aiming to simplify how people access information to improve experiences that they might have with any part of the system and help people use available services more effectively.
Our plan includes these key strategies:
- Creating user-friendly digital services that are easy for everyone to use and understand
- Building simple online tools to help people quickly find the information they need
- Making a clear system that shows all the local services and support options available
- Regularly improving our online platforms based on what users tell us and new technology
- Working with local community groups to make sure our online information accurately shows what help is available nearby
Historical work
Over the first 90 days we looked to establish all the information we needed to assess the ‘as is’ capabilities of the system as a whole. This required us to undertake an audit of the technologies we use, the integrations we’ve built, and the digital services and dashboards. During this period we undertook the following:
Domain Mapping
Domain Mapping has been an important way to understand our system better. It has helped us see how different parts of our organisation work together, how information moves between them, and how our business processes function.
This mapping also shows us where we can improve in the future. We can see opportunities to connect different areas better and make our work more efficient. This is particularly useful in our partnership, where many different parts need to work together smoothly to achieve our main goals for integrated care.
Technology Mapping
We've looked at the technology we currently use across our partnership. This helps us understand what our systems can do now. We're using this information to plan our future missions and the projects that fall out of them. It allows us to make the most of what we already have while also thinking about how to make things better in the future. We also checked how easy it is to connect our different systems and where they are stored or run from.
Capability Mapping
Capability Mapping is an important way we've learned about the skills and resources we have in our Integrated Care System (ICS). We've done this by:
- Looking at what our staff, teams, and departments can do
- Writing down these abilities
This helps us in several ways:
- We can match our people's skills to our goals better
- We can see where we might need new skills
- We can plan how to develop our staff for the future
By understanding what we can do now, we are better prepared to meet our future needs.
Governance Structure Mapping
We've looked at how decisions are made across our partnership. This helped us understand who's involved in making decisions and what their roles are. By knowing how our current system works, we can suggest ways to make it better. We want to make it clearer who's responsible for what, make decision-making faster, and hopefully make things easier for everyone involved.
Standards Mapping
Standards Mapping has been an important step in our process. We've looked at all the different technical and operational standards used across our partnership. This has helped us see where we have things in common and where we differ in how we work. By understanding these standards, we can aim to work more closely together. Our goal is to make our systems and processes work better together across the entire ICS (Integrated Care System).