As per previous insights released by The KingsFund document “A digital NHS” Authors: Matthew Moneyman, Phoebe Dunn and Helen McKenna. Digital technology has the potential to transform the way patients engage with services, improve the efficiency and co-ordination of care, and support people to manage their health and wellbeing.
Digital health offers a variety of choice for people with their health care related matters. Mobile health, wearable devices, telehealth, telemedicine, health information technology and personalised medicine are all the different categories incorporated in the digital health offering.
Digital health gives a more comprehensive view of patient health through these services allowing the patients to have more control of their health. This allows the patients to have a variety of choices to improve their medical outcomes and enhancing the efficiency of it.
These technologies allow patients to make informed and educated decisions about their health and gives them easy access to options that can support self-help/proactive care as well as determine potential early diagnosis of long-term illness or disease.
If this is the case, then why are so many clinicians resistant to the introduction of new technology? Why is there a reluctance to introduce digital health within their workplace? Do those clinicians feel like they are digital imposters? If so, how to we de myth technology from being disruptive but enabling both during implementation phase and embedding long terms ways of working which bring both improvements to both the workforce and the patients. Does the terminology around technology need to be broken down, since it is a completely different language to that of medical jargon? There is nothing wrong with jargon per se. Every field has it. Jargon helps specialists communicate to each other quickly and clearly. However, do we need to dilute the narrative when talking technology to clinicians? The risk of jargon is that it excludes people. It creates a perceived hedge of language which only the initiated can penetrate.
So why is this problem for digital transformation? I have been in many meetings with clinicians relating to technology implementation, and I am sure this will resonate with you: off goes the camera, on comes Google? Perhaps trying to understand terms like ITK, API, service standards, PAS, BaRS, interoperability (in various forms), Alpha and Beta testing (double checking), AI (triple checking), the names of the key urgent care IT suppliers, various protocols, and (of course) the strategic and policy documents aiming to drive the work that you are currently or intending to do. For myself, I support digital in all its forms, not least long-term efficiencies to be gained (mostly through automation and data driven insights to shape decisions, but also from a patient perspective and the impact it has on outcomes. A recent example being that I had to go for tests and I had access to the app to allow me the insight to the test results, the test results arrived into the app that night, I got the notification in the email, and I then looked at the results and the recommendation of them, it noted that my GP was required to make a 2 week wait referral (Which I knew was to rule out cancer), which then meant I went onto the NHS website to do more reading about what the referral pathway was. This gave me the knowledge and preparedness for when the GP called me the following day, having also received the same results I already had access to, I was able to receive that call in a very calm and accepting manner, which made for a comfortable call.
When supporting in digital transformation and adoption of technology, every new team that I support in implementation brings a fresh dictionary of jargon. Frankly, I enjoy mastering the new language of each specialist world I arrive in. Even so, it’s hard to be entirely comfortable with the uneasy squirm of imposter syndrome when it seems everyone knows the technology but the ones you need to know and understand the features and benefits. It’s not just that ‘digital’ has a reputation for impenetrable language. It’s that ‘digital’ is now ubiquitous. ‘Digital’ has become mainstream. There is almost no transformation that does not, in some way, have a ‘digital’ element. ‘Digital’ (unlike, say, neurosurgery or astronomy) is something a clinician and their team is expected to make a decision on, manage, or even lead. But if the ‘digital’ language they are faced with is so alien, so specialist, then many whom are the intended beneficiaries of the technology, may succumb to Impostor Syndrome. Feeling they are the only one who doesn’t understand, they could also be forgiven for avoiding issues, deferring decisions, or misunderstanding problems, or presenting endless objective to avert attention and delay the implementation occurring. Which is an important consideration when supporting people in adopting and embedding a culture where technology is another cog in their wheel of service delivery.
For further reading in this field please see: 2022 predictions: Digital health leaders look ahead
Digital World Health Congress 17-18th May 2022: Digital Health World Congress 2022 - Healthcare Conference - London Healthtech MedTech UK IT Tech Europe - Virtual Online (digitalhealthcareworldcongress.com)
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