How can we make the most of a rapidly digitalised landscape, whilst still looking after our NHS people?

Niamh McKenna, Chief Information Officer at NHS Resolution, hosted the recent digital focussed event, ‘2020: A Catalyst for Rapid NHS Digital Transformation’. Panellists from NHS England & Improvement, Health Education England, and Microsoft, looked to dissect the rapid acceleration of digitalisation in our NHS over the last twelve months, and what this means for our sector and our workforce.

The two hour event hosted over 100 attendees and live-streamed on YouTube, allowing delegates to hear about the key considerations for the impact of a new digital-first way of working.

Looking at the good and the bad from the last twelve months, the panellists shared insight into digital-first training, technology fatigue on the workforce, revolutionary digital approaches from case studies on COVID-19 wards, and much more.

One important topic associated with digital is the role of learning for our NHS workforce, and Henrietta Mbeah-Bankas, Head of Blended Learning and Digital Literacy at Health Education England, raised some interesting opportunities, challenges, and considerations around digital learning for the workforce:

“Properly defining digital literacy is one of the first vital steps for a digital transformation strategy to succeed, we can’t continue to make assumptions like ‘Millennials are digital-natives’."

“There are three groups we need to consider to properly develop an inclusive digital transformation strategy that will be effective – the digitally engaged, digitally ambivalent, and those that say, ‘I don’t do tech’. For me there’s also a fourth group, those who are actually digitally excluded. Until you understand the barriers these people have and consider how they’ll approach digital solutions, you can’t begin to create an inclusive digital strategy that will ensure everyone comes on the journey with you."

Niamh's key take-away from the event was that we need to make sure we continue to embrace rapid digital transformation, use it as a catalyst to get stuff done, improve work, improve lives, and improve patient care. We must use all this data available to us to understand the good and the not so good outcomes from the pandemic to shape initiatives for our new future.

A recording of this event is now available to watch on demand here, along with downloadable supportive resources shared by the panellists.

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Source: Health Tech Newspaper, 30 November 2020