Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) is aiming to develop new functions for the National Data Resource (NDR) platform for health and social care in the country.
The plan is an element of one of five missions set out in the new strategy, to run until 2030, from the special health authority with responsibility for digital transformation in the Welsh NHS.
Under the first mission – to provide a platform to enable digital transformation – the document says the NDR went live in 2023 and there is now a roadmap prioritising the addition of local datastores and reference, demographics and medicines data.
It adds that this is part of the effort to build a data infrastructure to enable the use of new analytics and AI technologies, and to bring the data currently held in many separate places together. This will be based on an open architecture allowing for data to be passed between products and services using APIs and to be reused.
Further missions
The other five missions are to expand the use of the digital health and care record, to deliver high quality digital products and services, encourage innovation for better value and outcomes, and for DHCW to be a trusted strategic partner and a high quality, inclusive and ambitious organisation.
Among the objectives within these is all core health services are consolidated with the all-Wales Electronic Health Record, all social care with the Electronic Social Care Record, and all prescribing and medicines management is digitally enabled.
The document also outlines five underlying principles for future work: putting people first; simplifying everything DHCW does; designing for more data and digital; finding more value; and learning from the past while embracing the future.
DHCW said the strategy will be delivered through two full cycles of the Integrated Medium-Term Plan (IMTP), which sets out in detail the programmes of work planned over a three-year period and is refreshed annually.
Important milestone
Helen Thomas, chief executive at DHCW, said: “This new long term strategy represents an important milestone in the evolution of Digital Health and Care Wales. It lays out our bold vision for the next six years to provide world leading digital services, empowering people in Wales to live healthier lives by developing digital solutions to support high quality, sustainable and innovative health and care that meets the needs of healthcare professionals, patients and the public.
"Through the delivery of this strategy DHCW aims to make digital a force for good in health and care.”
Ifan Evans, executive director of digital strategy at DHCW, said: “Our long term strategy is an ambitious roadmap for our organisation, set in the context of an evolving digital landscape and the changing needs of our partners. We’ve worked closely with our staff, partners and stakeholders to develop a strategy with stretching objectives aligned to our strategic missions, that will support the digital transformation of health and care services over the next six years.”
