Mental Health CDMI open for validation

Digital Health Intelligence has launched a clinical digital maturity index for mental health trusts and is now inviting these organisations to validate the data.

The launch of the Mental Health CDMI comes three years after the launch of the Acute CDMI. This was developed as a UK-specific benchmarking model to enable users to see the core clinical and administrative systems in place at acute trusts and health boards, and to track progress over time.

The Mental Health CDMI has been developed in close co-operation with a steering group and clinicians working in mental health. It takes care to reflect the differences between acute and mental health trusts; for example by putting a much greater emphasis on mobile access to key systems.

Karl Grundy, director of Digital Health Intelligence, said: “We have just published a Mental Health CDMI profile for every mental health trust in the country – 56. There is now an opportunity for every trust to check their profile and work with our independent researchers to make sure it is correct and up to date.

“Trusts have until 15th of January to let us know whether there should be any changes. After that, we will re-run the algorithm that enables us to generate a ranking from the scores generated by the profiles.

“We will then publish the rankings and the updated profiles on the Digital Health Intelligence service, which remains free to NHS providers, who continue to support our research.”

The mental health trusts covered by the new CDMI include organisations that also run community services. However, Digital Health Intelligence is also working on a Community CDMI.

Once the full suite of CDMIs is in place, it should be possible to see the systems in use by the different arms of combined trusts, as well as across the acute, mental health, and community sectors. Additional data collected for the CDMI profiles reflects strategic priorities, such as use of the NHS Number, national standards, and interoperability.

Grundy said: “Since we launched the Acute CDMI three years ago, it has been possible to track digital maturity at individual trusts and across the NHS as a whole, to identify trends and to see the impact of policies such as the technology funds.

“There is no other benchmarking tool available that does the same job. We are confident that the Mental Health and Community CDMIs will provide a valuable resource for these important sectors, as they undergo a period of significant change.”

The Mental Health CDMI

Digital Health Intelligence has published Mental Health CDMI profiles for all 56 mental health trusts in the country. IT and clinical experts working at these organisations are now invited to view the profiles, and to check they are correct and up to date.

Trusts that need to correct or update their profiles can do so by obtaining an e-form from Digital Health Intelligence’s independent researchers.

Forms must be returned by 15 January, after which the profiles will be updated and a first Mental Health CDMI ranking table generated.

All CDMI profiles and ranking tables are updated regularly, so NHS trusts can tell Digital Health Intelligence about new installations at any time.