What does new power mean for the NHS?
What do shifting societal trends towards a sharing economy mean for the NHS? Understanding New Power (Heimans & Timms, December 2014) sets out a framework to conceptualise shifts in power which are enabled by digital technologies in contemporary society: Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures. New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it. The authors conceptualise a participation scale from consumption to co-owning, from old power models exemplified by Britannica to new power models such as Wikipedia. You can find out more about their framework in a fascinating Ted Talk given by Heiman here: Despite this being a contemporary framework, informed and enabled by digital technologies, it resonates with Shirley Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation which was published all the way back in 1969 and remains common currency in the field of NHS patient participation. Arnstein conceptualised an eight rung ladder of participation in decision making from manipulation and tokenism at the bottom to citizen control at the top. Heiman and Timm’s framework is like Arstein’s ladder, with the rocket fuel of technology as an enabler of new power possibilities for those of us who have access to the digital tools and literacy to take advantage of them. ...
How can we keep the digital revolution social? #mindtech15
How can we keep the digital revolution social? On Wednesday 2 December mHabitat is hosting a social debate in partnership with The Mental Elf and MindTech on the eve of the latter’s Harnessing the Digital Revolution annual symposium. The title of the debate is ‘can research really tell you how to make a good mental health app?’. We’ll be using the hashtag #mindtech15 as well as streaming the discussion live on Periscope. The debate is all about keeping the digital revolution open, social and exploratory – challenging ourselves to think critically about digital in mental health through public deliberation. We hope it will be stimulating, fun and informal. I have previously blogged about my lack of love for the traditional conference format, often characterised by experts on the podium transmitting knowledge to a largely passive audience. Not only do such events miss a trick in harnessing audience expertise within the audience but also often fail to be engaging. I’m a big advocate of participant led events, as exemplified by the People Driven Digital which a few of us organised earlier this year – we put a lot of effort into making this as sociable an event as possible. The symposium itself is a mix of presentations, debates, a rapid fire technology showcase, an exhibition and lots of opportunity for networking. You can book here – I recommend it. Theories of learning styles are contested, but if we recognise that people learn differently, then it makes sense to organise an event in ways which vary pace and style to keep people engaged. So it’s been fabulous to collaborate with Mindtech and...
Digital technologies in mental health – opportunities, challenges and unexpected benefits
In a few weeks time I am speaking at the 2nd Summit New Technologies and Mental Health: Future Possibilities in Barcelona. In my presentation I will share opportunities, challenges and unexpected benefits arising from the first year and a half of our mHabitat programme – supporting digital innovation in the sphere of mental health and beyond. People first – technology second The first insight I will share is a simple one – the fundamental importance of putting people first and technology second. It seems obvious that people should be at the heart of any innovation in mental health, but we have learnt that it is often missed. It is too easy for the allure of new technology to outshine more mundane but crucial considerations of understanding what people actually want and need. Why is it so important to put people first? Creating or licensing a digital technology will only add real value if we deeply understand the preferences, motivations and capabilities of the people they are intended for. Fortunately there are established methodologies, such as user centred design and service design for co-designing digital technologies that add value to a user’s journey through a service. In the health service there is the added dimension that digital technologies need to be underpinned by sound theories of behaviour change and/or clinical guidance as well as meeting regulatory requirements. Generating evidence so we know what works and what doesn’t is also an important consideration. Putting people at the centre is the first step to developing digital technologies that will really make a difference to people’s lives. Putting people first means recognising that...
Digital is just a fad.
‘Digital is just a fad’ ‘Digital is just a distraction from the real problems facing healthcare’ ‘Digital is just another thing to learn and I don’t have time’ These are all challenges I’ve recently heard from healthcare professionals recently who are reticent and doubtful about the value of spending time developing their understanding of social media and digital tools/services. Everyone is busy and everyone is overstretched. So why should their attention be focused here when they are so many other more pressing priorities? Their wariness is in sharp contrast to a talk on widening digital participation by Bob Gann at a recent mHealthHabitat breakfast discussion in which he shared the following three stark facts: Low health literacy is closely linked to poor outcomes and mortality Information and services are increasingly digital – digital skills are increasingly linked to health literacy Those who are least likely to be online are those who most need health and care services. If digital skills are important for people needing health and care services then they are also important for practitioners who are delivering those services. Increasingly, practitioners need to incorporate digital mediation in to their day to day work – helping people find and make sense of the best health information and digital tools online. Digital skills aren’t just technical skills – they are skills in appraising information online, they are skills in participating in online communities to maximise their beneficial effects and minimise harm; they are skills in understanding whether a mobile app is based on evidenced clinical effectiveness and deciding if you’re ok with how it uses your data; they are...
Digital and making the invisible visible
This week I was invited to speak at a Ministerial event in Leeds which showcased the growing community of data, digital and health in our city. The opportunity to share the mHealthHabitat programme with an audience was great, but that’s not what I want to talk about here. Instead, I want to reflect on who gets to be in the conversation and who doesn’t. My post is offered in a spirit of enquiry and in making visible what can easily be rendered invisible. It was visible to me that I was the only woman on the invite list (as it turned out there were two other women present in the audience). All the speakers, apart from me, were men. Once I had noticed gender it was only a small leap to notice that everyone was white, almost everyone was wearing a suit, and everyone was of a certain age. There was no one there bringing patient perspectives to the conversation. There are two things I am not doing in this post – firstly, I am not taking the moral high ground, if it had been an event full of white women I may well have not noticed if there were no black women there. I noticed because I was in a minority myself. Secondly, I am not criticising this particular event – it’s an example of what seems to be business as usual most places you go when it comes to digital. The event was successful in rendering visible to myself, and no doubt other participants, that there really is a growing community of people in the digital and...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
