Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has published its draft organisational strategy 2024-2030, setting out strategic objectives for digital across health and care, including infrastructure, data platform, open architecture, digital services, digital health and care records, research, innovation and workforce, along with a request for views from partners and stakeholders.
The strategy looks to outline DHCW’s role within the Welsh health and care system over the next six years, focusing on five principles including “design for more digital, more data”.
In advancing future infrastructure, data platform and open architecture, objectives are to move data stores and services across to the NDR Data platform to “create a single national Clinical Data Repository”, as well as redesigning applications and services to “a clean open architecture based on standards which is secure by design”. Additionally, plans include extending data standards and components to social care and other partners, and moving live services to the cloud and closing data centres.
Strategic objectives under digital services include ensuring that all prescribing and medicines management in Wales is “digitally enabled”; that all digital health and major social care systems flow data into and out of the NDR Data Platform; that core health services are consolidated into a single all-Wales EPR application; and that core social care services are consolidated into a single all-Wales ESCR application.
On maximising the use of the digital health and care record, DHCW aims to ensure that a “comprehensive single health and care record is used across all settings throughout Wales”. Additionally, there are aims to encourage the regular use of the NHS Wales App by more than a million people, and receiving a “top-quartile satisfaction” for products and services from users.
For research and innovation, DHCW’s strategic objectives are to set up an NDR Secure Data Environment which allows research access whilst protecting privacy, and to create a “national information and data insights service which demonstrates net benefit and value”.
Finally, DHCW sets out strategic objectives around affirming the organisation’s position “as a trusted partner and a high-performing organisation”. These include taking an “academy approach” to staff development aligned with DDaT, a pipeline of products and services supported by stakeholders, and “top quartile staff and stakeholder engagement”.
