Partnering With Yorkshire Humber Care Record
Ready to begin your digital transformation journey but not sure where to start? Needing an assessment of your organisation’s current state of digital maturity?
Here’s how we helped the Yorkshire Humber Care Record programme assess regional NHS Trusts and Local Authority social care services for their states of digital maturity.
The Requirement
A critical first step in the digital transformation process, a current state assessment empowers organisations with knowledge. Having a detailed understanding of their current state enables Trust’s to effectively map and plan the next steps in their journey of digital transformation – leading them up the HIMSS levels.
YHCR aimed to join up their acute, primary care, mental health, ambulance and social care information across the entire region. Awarded £7.5m in national funding in September 2019, they were tasked to develop a regional shared health and care record by connecting their existing NHS and Social Care IT systems together.
As a specialist healthcare IT recruitment agency, we supported . By partnering with the experts, the YHCR positioned the right specialists, in the right places, at the right time –a successful collaboration that has since had huge impact on care services in the region!
Main Objectives
- Map out the systems that currently existence
- Connect existing NHS & Social Care IT systems
- Join-up care services and make records more accessible
- Successfully roll-out data joining project across a 2-3 year period
Action Plan
Gathering data from 50 sites, collating, and making sense of it is a considerable task so the work was broken into 5 key steps with actions:
Contacts
The first step was to confirm all the key contacts at each site, obtaining phone and email addresses. Then an introductory email was sent to each contact explaining the objectives and the benefits of the work.
Questionnaire
A questionnaire was designed and tested with questions that collected information on the following topics: levels of existing shared records, gaps in local shared records, local plans and strategies to develop shared records, infrastructure constraints and improvement plans, local resources, capacity and capability, local commitment in being part of the YHCR. The questionnaire was then issued to key contacts.
Interviews
Following up on the introductory email, interviews were arranged both as site visits and conference calls.
Clarification
Interview notes were collated from which a report template was created. Next, any questions outstanding from the interviews were clarified to ensure completion and consistency.
Write-up
Finally, notes from each interview were written up and formatted into the document template.
The Delivery
Connecting them to the specialists who could deliver the assessment plan and report back findings was critical. Here’s what the experts accomplished…
- Research targeted technology, not application. This meant it was only IT leaders, not clinical or CCIO members, that were interviewed.
- A standardised questionnaire ensured uniform data collection. The questionnaire explored YHCR adoption interest, local capacity, infrastructure, and future plans.
- The interoperability map of YHCR's 'current state' was reviewed by organisations and updated for trend analysis.
- Interviews, around an hour each, generated ongoing comprehensive reports.
- Continuous follow-up ensured completeness and accuracy of information.
- 50
- Sites Interviewed
The Results
The final report establishes current organisational states, highlighting gaps in technology, enablers, and challenges for YHCR implementation. The assessment revealed multiple systems existed, including EPR solutions with limited data sharing across local providers.
With disjointed systems discovered, the current states offered minimal patient care enhancement revealing duplications and areas of potential waste. Report findings aligned with expectations, prompting queries on data security, trust, and stakeholder engagement for YHCR.
The research aids YHCR by offering feedback for program delivery, guiding rollout plans, criteria establishment, infrastructure readiness, and benefits anticipation. The assessment proved to be an important initial step for Trust’s to develop plans that would improve current IT ecosystems.
Needing a current state assessment? Looking to find out which stage of maturity (in the EMRAM) your organisation is at?
Contact us today...