Digital Technology and Healthcare – SMF research report, supported by Atos

Using technology to improve citizen care and drive better health outcomes

This Social Market Foundation (SMF) report supported by Atos entitled National Health Servers: Delivering Digital Health for All explores how technology could be adopted more quickly and widely by the NHS to improve the care that citizens receive and to drive better health outcomes. The report seeks to answer the following questions:

• What future steps can be taken through digital technology to improve health outcomes and the patient experience in primary and secondary care?
• Which technologies could help prevent illnesses and promote good health outside of the traditional NHS services?
• How could these improvements manifest themselves across the patient journey or care pathway?

Further, based on the research, it identifies six policy recommendations for driving improvements in the use of technology across the care pathway.

In describing the patient journey, the report charts some evidence of slow and varied take-up of digital technologies in healthcare.

The report also sets out proposals for future development of technology in the NHS that impact across the patient journey which are based on three core foundations. Firstly, the recommendations form part of a wider contract with the public. Secondly, the report argues that whilst the NHS should make digital healthcare more accessible and more patient-centred, in many areas it supplements rather than replaces existing practices. Thirdly, the report takes as a starting point an emphasis on empowering NHS staff to utilise digital technology to make their jobs easier and enable them to spend more time focusing on patient care.