Digital Health

Our Digital Health courses are designed to enable data driven decision making by all members of the health workforce, and inform the design, implementation and use key building blocks for a well-connected data driven Digital Health Ecosystem.

“Digital health is about counteracting the waste. People make the same mistakes in healthcare data and system design, over and over rather than learning the lessons. We have chosen to work with standards and education as a mechanism to help make change happen.” Heather Grain

“Digital health has the potential to achieve transformed mindsets amongst high level decision makers, who can influence global and local jurisdictional and organisational digital health strategies.” Evelyn Hovenga

Learn how to design, adopt and use digital technologies by choosing any one of our short, focused courses developed by the world’s best – learn from those who have done it!

Learn more about digital health from our textbook: https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128234136/roadmap-to-successful-digital-health-ecosystems

Scientific underpinnings of Health Data Science:

Health concept characteristics, application, work/information flows and technical relationships within a well-connected and supported digital ecosystem infrastructure.

Who Needs Digital Health Knowledge and Skills?

The Health workforce in need of Digital Health Knowledge and skills includes Clinicians, Managers, Health Information Managers, Researchers, Public Health Practitioners, IT Specialists, Software designers and programmers, Procurement Officers, Senior Executives, Policy Developers, Public Service Administrators and more.  They collectively need to:

  • Enable and support the provision of person centred, precision, participative, preventive, and predictive health and medical care
  • Optimise population health, quality care and support service provision, at minimal cost
  • Manage cyber security and ensure ethical data management and use
  • Generate the evidence to meet every decision maker’s needs
  • Attain a well connected, fully interoperable digital health ecosystem

This requires every clinical discipline to adopt an evidence based practice ethos and be enabled and digitally supported to collect, use and document data/information for:

  • Assessment and planning
  • Applying prior knowledge to new information
  • Data driven planning and decision making
  • Team interactions, communication, collaboration
  • Documenting what activities need to be undertaken and when
  • Undertake interventions (implementation)
  • Comply with ethical/legal data use principles
  • Evaluate and research best practice (generate new knowledge for continuous improvement and quality management)

Digital Technology Adoption and Effective Use Dependencies

Digital technologies need to be well designed and be supported by the provision of national Internet access, reliable energy (electricity) supplies at any health service location, legislation, National/State/Territory management and policy initiatives based on its digital health strategic directions including:

  • Unique identifiers
  • Federated vendor/technology neutral data storage facilities
  • Mandated concept representation standards structured according to agreed information models
  • Data access and technical conformance requirements and assessment processes
  • Cybersecurity provision
  • Governance Requirements & Conformance Assessments

Key Digital Health Buildings Blocks able to support a well connected data driven digital health ecosystem are outlined in the accompanying diagram.

Global and National Infrastructure Building Blocks

The development and management of these critical building blocks must be mandated and compliance assessed by Governments through policy directions, legislative and associated governance methods to foster interconnected, inclusive health ecosystems that enable the optimisation of benefits to be gained by all from living within this digital era.

Such an ecosystem supportive infrastructure empowers citizens, care providers, and local software developers to be innovative to best meet the service needs of individuals in any location.

Ecosystem Architecture

This needs to include an open platform able to meet the needs of all stakeholders and support the data supply chain.

Better data and regular data use will create a data use culture, leading to better decisions, an improved health system, and improved health outcomes[1]

Electricity and Broadband (Internet Access)

A fundamental pre-requisite for all living in digital era irrespective of location available when and where required.

Unique Identifiers

An essential pre-requisite to ensure data collected can be linked to care recipients as well as organisational and individual providers.

Concept Representation Standards

Key health concepts need to be represented in the same manner throughout any digital health ecosystem to ensure data accuracy, enable consistent quality data collection at every level, optimising data analytics and reducing data collection burden. This enables evidence based decision making at all levels and is best achieved by adopting a multilevel modelling approach and an open platform.

Ecosystem Data Architecture

A representation of concepts and their relationships. The data architecture defines concepts, constraints, rules which provide safe consistent data collection and use which retains meaning throughout the data supply chain. The domain or discourse contribute to the architectural requirements and select data from the data ecosystem based upon their use case. This results in data that are structurally independent, simpler and safer to share. The resulting lack of data silos enables advanced data analytics.

Vendor/Technology Neutral Data Storage

The separation of systems and storage delivering scalable cost effective data access and flexible systems for all users across the healthcare network. This supports persistent and transient data as well as real time local and remote data access.

Data/Information Governance

Specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to ensure appropriate behaviour in the evaluation, creation, storage, processing, use, archiving and deletion of information. Coordinated data governance applies to all points along the data supply chain.

Data Access Control

Legislation is required to indicate who can have access to identifiable and non-identifiable data for what purpose. This needs to be considered in the light of ethical data use, and ‘use case’ specific privacy and confidentiality considerations.

Cybersecurity

Minimising risk of cyberattacks by protecting systems, servers, networks, mobile devices. Adopt and maintain programs that educate the workforce, manage and monitor unauthorised data access.

Legislation, Policy and Compliance

Policy directions and associated legislation enabling the provision and compliance monitoring of health service funding mechanisms enabling universal, person-centred health care through an optimised primary care infrastructure supported by a well specified and mandated digital health infrastructure.

[1] PATH. (2016). Data Use Partnership: Theory of Change. Retrieved 22 December from https://www.path.org/resources/data-use-partnership-theory-of-change/