eHealth

The eHealth Programme aims to change the way in which information and related technology are used within NHSScotland in order to improve the quality of patient care.

Delivering the eHealth Programme is vital to support the shift from reactive, crisis management, acute-orientated care towards anticipatory, preventative and continuous care.

eHealth supports improvements in service delivery at the level of individual organisations and redesign of processes and roles. This impacts on both clinical and administrative staff and will affect all professional groups.

eHealth aims to improve patient care through advances in technology, resulting in better access to health information, joined-up GP and hospital services and quicker results such as lab tests and x-rays. However, it is not just about technology, it is about modernising processes and encouraging new ways of working.

The eHealth Programme is essentially a ‘programme of programmes’ and currently consists of numerous programmes, projects and services combined under the eHealth banner. These can be managed either directly by NHS Boards (including NSS) or by the Scottish Government.

Objectives of the eHealth Programme

• To enable NHS Boards to implement a clinical portal incrementally, improving the access to information in support of safer, more efficient and more effective care.
• To enable NHS Boards to maximise use of the new GP IT Framework in Primary and Community Care to improve information and support shifting the balance of care.
• Encourage and support integration of clinical and management systems to provide more effective, efficient and safer care that will enable improvements in the management of patient journeys.
• To improve the governance of investment and particularly the governance of benefits accross SGHD and NHS Scotland to ensure that decisions are affordable, implementable, usable and acceptable.
• To develop for implementation an assurance strategy and information governance policies which support the efficient and effective use of information.
• To implement strategies for managing and reducing IT costs and for developing IT investment programmes which reduce the cost of providing healthcare.

September 27th, 2011