DHI Phase 2 Annual Report - Year 1 (August 2019-July2020)

The first year of Phase 2 of DHI has been interesting, satisfying and challenging in equal measure. This year has seen the successful closure of a number of projects, whilst others have further evolved and expanded as the results of our work have demonstrated real added value to the health and care system as well as real benefits to patients, service users and their families. With the emergence of coronavirus in late December 2019 and the subsequent global pandemic that we are all living through, the real value that DHI delivers for Scotland has come to the fore. The whole team have been actively involved in support of the Scottish and UK Governments in the management of Covid-19. DHI has both informed, designed and delivered significant components of the digital response to the pandemic.

Utilising our DSE infrastructure, DHI has assisted in the delivery of the Test and Protect response. We produced, in an accelerated timeframe, the digital tools used by Scotland’s Health Protection Teams, the result notification service for patients and the patient focussed contact tracing selfservice app. The DHI team has also assisted in the development of the coronavirus clinical assessment app for doctors, nurses and carers, as well as ensuring data can flow seamlessly and securely into the NHS public health services and the intelligence function.
These are just some examples in a much larger list of activities that DHI has been engaged in
and delivered. As well as this, DHI has continued to build its pipeline of future initiatives and has
evolved and refined an innovation process that ensures that anything that we do is not simply
interesting or exciting but is regarded as a local, regional or national priority for Scotland and is
capable of adoption and scaling over time.

Now we have in place a number of strong strategic relationships with both national and international leaders in digital health and care. Some of the international organisations that we have secured as collaboration partners over the past year include the European Connected Health Alliance, the Ministry of Health and the Health Service Executive in the Republic of Ireland, Kaiser Permanente in California, the University of California San Francisco and the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health. Closer to home we are building working relationships with NHS Digital and the Ministries of Health in Wales and Northern Ireland. These relationships will not only benefit DHI but also the broader digital and health and care community across Scotland over time.

We are determined to build on our existing successes and continue to lead this important agenda through secure, effective and sustainable person centred services for all of Scotland’s people.