The Welsh Government has launched a refreshed Digital and Data Strategy for health and social care.
The document builds on the government’s 2015 strategy and aims to help people lead happier, healthier and longer lives through ‘user-centred digital services’ that ‘harness technological advances’.
The strategy sets out the expectations to health boards and trusts, together with social care providers, on how digital and data should be used to advance the quality of services, improve the patient experience, and also empower people to manage their health.
Innovation already in action includes the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnosing cancer. Following successful trials analysing prostate biopsies (a 13% increase in cancer detection), an AI platform called the IBEX Galen is being trialled in suspected breast cancer cases.
Other examples of digital services within NHS Wales, and the types of innovation the refreshed strategy wants to encourage include the NHS Wales App; the Welsh Nursing Care Record; and the Cancer Informatics System.
The minister for health and social services Eluned Morgan said that ‘Wales is pioneering digital health care’ and that ‘the modernisation of the NHS will be driven by digital, data and innovation in the years to come.’ She also said that it’s by ‘embracing new technologies’ that they can ‘find new ways to save lives and increase performance across health and social care.’
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