Digital Health and Care Wales to launch digital systems usability survey

Digital Health and Care Wales is set to launch a new digital systems usability survey, which will assess the effectiveness of the clinical digital systems that are in use across NHS Wales.

The survey will go live on Monday 27 March 2023, and will cover all seven health boards, plus Velindre University NHS Trust. Staff will be invited to share their views in what is set to be the largest user-led research study of its kind for the country.

Dylan Roberts, chief digital information officer, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, said: “This is a big step forward in developing more responsive, user-centred and digitally-mature technologies and services in Wales.

“The survey is based on internationally-recognised research that will help NHS organisations in Wales to see, for the first time, how their digital systems and their usability rank with counterparts around the world. The results will provide essential baseline data to assess where we are now and how we improve collaboratively across Wales in the short, medium and long term.”

Participating organisations will be able to benchmark the usability of their digital systems against their national and international counterparts across a number of indicators.

Each organisation will receive a personalised scorecard, along with bespoke support to help them understand their results and how to act on them. The feedback will also be used on a national level by Digital Health and Care Wales and NHS Wales.

Digital Health and Care Wales officially launched two years ago as a special health authority.

The results of the survey will play a key role in its mission to drive up digital maturity across NHS Wales. It will provide direct, comparable data on usability of clinical IT across most of the secondary care organisations in the region.

Data that has been collected will be used to inform future digital improvement strategies that will be co-produced with NHS organisations in Wales.

Frances Beadle, chief nursing information officer, Digital Health and Care Wales, said: “It is important that we understand how NHS Wales staff feel about the digital systems they use every day. The survey provides us the opportunity to understand how we can further develop digital systems in future in order to better support clinicians in their day-to-day roles.”

KLAS Research has developed the methodology and will conduct the survey.