Cash incentive for NHS digital info sharing
pharmafile | September 3, 2012 | News story | | NHS, digital
NHS bodies which develop new digital services for sharing information could be eligible for thousands of pounds worth of funding, the Department of Health has announced.
If these services improve patient care, demonstrably offer value for money and can be easily adopted across the NHS, then local organisations have until 5 October to apply for cash via the Information Sharing Challenge Fund.
The Department insists that projects ‘must lead to a successful deployment and demonstrate meaningful use of digital information exchange’ in a health and social care environment by 31 March 2013.
The sorts of innovations it has in mind are remote patient monitoring schemes and maternity digital capture, both of which take data from one area and transfer it to central clinical records which can be seen by patients and doctors.
“We want to support doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals to be innovative in the NHS,” said health minister Lord Howe.
“That is why we have created this fund to encourage NHS organisations to come up with new digital ideas that not only improve services for patients but help create an environment where local IT information can be more easily shared,” he concluded.
While pharma is alive to the possibilities of digital communication, the rise of the ePatient – patients who are generally better-informed about what’s online than their doctors are – suggests this may be an area in which health professionals are lagging.
Transparency of information has been a buzzphrase in the NHS for several years: patients have been able to post comments and ratings for hospitals on the NHS Choices website since 2008, in the same way as they might rate a holiday or hotel on other consumer sites, for example.
And the Department of Health’s information strategy, announced in May, opened up information to consumer groups and non-NHS IT specialists so they can produce relevant websites and apps.
But it is hoped by the government that the introduction of a cash incentive will boost innovation and help NHS organisations, social services and the third sector share data.
“The recently published NHS information strategy highlights the need for a ‘connect all’ approach to IT systems and the Information Sharing Challenge Fund is all about helping care services collaborate,” said Ailsa Claire, transition director for patients and intelligence at the NHS Commissioning Board Authority.
“Encouraging local innovation in this way will allow for better integrated care and allow patients to access their information so they can make decisions based on what they need,” she added.
While the Department has published a headline figure of up to £99,000 for successful applicants, it says in its prospectus that there will be ‘relatively few’ awards over £75,000, and that the majority will be below £50,000.
The NHS Interoperability Toolkit already outlines standards and frameworks that allow different IT systems to connect with one another.
The ITK Sharing Challenge Fund is on Twitter at @ITKISCF.
Adam Hill
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