A draft standards and interoperability strategy has been published with the aim of driving interoperability across the NHS and social care.
The Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FCI) was commissioned by the NHS England and Improvement Transformation Directorate to help them with consultation on the proposed strategy which involved stakeholders from across health and care.
The overall aim of the document is to improve levels of interoperability across the NHS and social care through the development and adoption of standards. This includes an overview of the challenges and opportunities, clarifies definitions of key terms and outlines the main proposed solutions.
According to the strategy there are a number of “foundations of success” which include “understanding and overcoming current barriers to implementation” and “introducing a mechanism to identify which vendors’ systems are conformant”.
When looking at what needs to be done, the document says there are five steps needed in order to drive adoption.
They are:
- Define a model care record
- Define the architectural approach
- Make it easier to implement standards
- Manage standards as a product
- Make it commercially attractive to develop standards-compliant software
According to the FCI, the draft strategy is in line with the ‘Data Saves Lives: Reshaping health and social care with data’ and the forthcoming ‘Data Architecture Strategy’.
Now the draft strategy has been published the NHS Transformation Directorate and the FCI are keen to gather feedback.
Feedback can be submitted via an online survey or through a number of digital focus groups which are taking place in May.
Anne Marie Cunningham, vice chair of FCI, said: “With the advent of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) interoperability has never been more important.
“Please take the time to shape the NHS Transformation Directorate’s Standards and Interoperability Strategy by joining the consultation and providing your feedback”.
7 May 2022 @ 09:04
The problem has never been about interoperability, but has been about IT suppliers refusing to integrate with each other on spurious technical reasons and/or by charging like a wounded bull.
The leaders from the CfH / NHSX debacle who have singularly failed to make the grade have now been culled thankfully. The current answer to this collective incompetence seems to be to give all the data to Palantir. This is a pity because something like the Orion solution in Northern Ireland has worked really well.
6 May 2022 @ 12:32
Why are we always trying to re-invent the wheel? While I haven’t read the paper yet, it sounds to me like another attempt to recycle old ideas. This may impress senior leadership, but most of those ‘steps’ have been addressed for sometime now, mainly through organisations such as NHS Digital, the recently disbanded NHSX, and external groups like OpenEHR, PRSB, HL7 international and the IHTSDO. The problem is we can never agree how to implement them consistently for the entire NHS.
6 May 2022 @ 11:15
I agree that t is essential to “understanding and overcoming current barriers to implementation”.
May I humbly submit a a few barriers I have noticed in 20 years of failed attempts to implement “Connecting for health”.
1 Lack of will and leadership from Government.
2. Sabotage by hospital trusts and software houses,who perceive standards as being against their interests.
My solution is a total clear-out of the generation responsible.