People centred participation – thinking forward to #kfdigital16
What are the conversations we need to be having about digital in health and care? Who needs to be part of those conversations? And what do we hope to achieve by having them? These are questions I was left with after two days at the King’s Fund 2015 Digital Health and Care Congress which took the form of plenary sessions and breakout workshops alongside a public meeting of the National Information Board (NIB). Never mind the apps, what about the fundamentals? Many digital health events seems to orientate around a mix of policy issues and showcasing of apps and digital services. Whilst these are interesting and useful I believe there are more fundamental conversations we need to have about the role of digital in health. There are knotty problems and challenges that everyone is grappling with but which are not easily surfaced without a dedicated focus and a more deliberative participatory approach. These sorts of conversations did surface on Twitter during the Congress but the event itself did not facilitate their discussion in depth. Here are a few examples of fascinating conundrums we all should be thinking about in the sphere of digital innovation: Wondering how much #kfdigital15 debated will be about potential of digital to challenge, rather than accept, existing NHS power structures @jamesfm55 My concern is that focus on ‘apps’ will distract from what could really be done to improve population health #kfdigital15 @amcunningham I’m troubled a little by the idea of ‘taking responsibility for your own health’ filtering into #kfdigital15. Hope someone unpacks that idea @markoneinfour I’d like to attend #kfdigital16 where these sorts of thematic...
Seven steps to mHealth shareability
We’re not always great at sharing stuff in the NHS. And if we do want to share stuff there can be lots of barriers that get in the way. Of course there are all sorts of circumstances in which it’s right to not share (personal confidentiality being an obvious one) but what about when sharing is a way to improve what you do and how you do it? The idea of shareability is something we’re thinking about a lot in the mHealthHabitat programme. Starting with a blank canvas has been an opportunity to try out new ways of doing stuff and make use of digital tools which can help us work smarter and more openly. Sharing with each other as a team (we have no office base) is critical to getting things done; sharing our learning beyond the team is an important part of enabling us achieve our purpose of creating a habitat in Leeds where mHealth can flourish. We haven’t got it quite right yet but we are busy building up the shareability factor as we go, and having a proper team now in place means we have a few more hands and heads to make this happen. Here are seven ways in which we are experimenting with being more sharey: Blogging it – we set up a blog as quickly as possible after we got off the blocks in January so that we had a web-based home for the habitat. We are not only capturing learning in bite-size blog post chunks for ourselves, but also making it available for anyone else who might be interested in what...
The digital spirit level – four learning points for innovation
Achieving equilibrium is a tricky thing when attempting to introduce digital innovation to large organisations. There are many different paces to manage; so many different interests to consider; and so many pot holes to fall down. Just when I think we’ve got one thing in balance I look over my shoulder and something else needs adjusting. If I were to hold a virtual spirit level to our mHealthHabitat programme I’d rarely see a balanced horizontal line. Here are a four learning points from our first six months: Tactics versus strategy We began our mHealthHabitat programme by doing stuff – finding pockets of interest and enthusiasm, supporting bright ideas, learning through experience, making mistakes and doing it differently next time. Doing is very important – it is grounded, it engages people and it generates evidence about what works and what doesn’t. But it is not enough. You also have to create a receptive context as well as alignment with organisational strategy if your innovation is to be sustainable. A beautiful strategy but no doing is another trap. Doing and strategising need to be kept in constant equilibrium with one informing the other and back again. Keeping both in your line of vision are critical but it’s easy to lose sight of one or the other. Internal versus external Innovation often emerges when diverse perspectives enable us to see a problem differently and find an unexpected solution. Digital innovation requires not only different perspectives but very different skills sets, language and styles of communication. An internal NHS orientation focuses on building awareness and enthusiasm within organisational channels, and engaging with clinicians...
Fancy a bit of ‘show and tell’?
In Leeds we’re busy establishing the right conditions for mHealth (that is digital tools in health services) to flourish in our city – we want to build a community of people up for collaborating together for the purpose of improving experience and outcomes for people accessing health services in the city. We think that one of the ways to build a community is to provide opportunities for people to come together and share learning in a friendly, informal environment away from the workplace. That’s why we’ve organised our first ‘show and tell’ evening at the new Open Data Institute in Leeds. You can book a free place at the event here. We’ve got a brilliant line up for our first event with people bringing patient, carer and developer points of view. And if you’d like to share your own ideas then there’s an ‘open mic’ spot for anyone who would like to pitch in as well (2 minute slot per person). Here’s are a bit more information about our speakers: John Eaglesham: Developing a digital tool for self-management of chronic pain across a whole care pathway in Leeds John became Chief Executive of Advanced Digital Institute in 2009, and has led the company from its origins as a not-for-profit institute to its current position as a thriving, fast-growing, entrepreneurial enterprise. John contributes to several key industry groups in the Assisted Living and Smart Metering sectors and advises a number of public and private sector policy-making bodies. He is also a qualified executive coach who works with a number of FTSE 250 company directors. Kathryn Grace: Digital tools to support...
Small steps – smoothing the way for #mHealth innovation in the NHS
If we’re going to develop digital tools that make a proper difference to people’s lives, then we need fantastic collaboration between app developers, designers, academics, clinicians and people accessing services. This is the magic that will enable great ideas and solutions to emerge. Sound simple? Well we’ve already come unstuck a few times and we’re only at the beginning of our #mHealthHabitat journey – creating an environment in Leeds for mHealth to flourish. It’s increasingly apparent to me that NHS institutions can be daunting bodies to collaborate with for all sorts of different reasons. But we desperately need the creativity and technical know-how of digital specialists, alongside the domain expertise of people who know intimately what it is like to live with a particular diagnosis, and people with clinical knowledge, teaming up together. My aspiration is to make this as easy as possible, and one way to get there is to learn through doing. Once we’ve done it then it will be a little easier the next time. And so on. A big challenge is in understanding all the checks and balances required by the NHS to protect the safety and privacy of people accessing services. It’s a minefield of information governance, regulation and ethics – all undeniably important and all tricky to balance with agile innovation – learning fast and failing quickly. It is possible to get so lost in regulation that innovation becomes a distant dream. Last week I hooked up with MindTech, alongside a group of people bringing diverse expertise, to begin unpicking all the fundamental standards that should be considered when recommending, licencing or developing...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
