Health system and partners in the running for six national awards
Frimley Health and Care’s Connected Care team and partners have been shortlisted in six categories at the prestigious upcoming HSJ Digital Awards.
The work shortlisted, has demonstrated using ground-breaking digital technology and actionable population health insight in a truly innovative way to access real time patient data and identify those most at risk. This has enabled the team to empower patients to identify and manage their health and wellbeing more effectively and reduce health inequalities.
Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care System (ICS) is a partnership of NHS, local authority, voluntary sector and private sector health and care organisations. It is committed to reducing inequalities and creating healthier communities for the local people it serves.
The Connected Care team (which includes clinical leadership, analysts and digital transformation staff) working in partnership with Graphnet the UK’s leading supplier of shared care record and population health solutions, and with local GP practices, have been able to identify and target areas, groups or individuals who can benefit from intervention and support to improve their health outcomes and experiences.
Fiona Edwards, Chief Executive of Frimley Health and Care ICS, said: “It is wonderful news that we and our system partners have been shortlisted for so many awards which show the power of digital technologies in supporting targeted interventions, improved outcomes and the general health and wellbeing of local people.
“These award nominations shine a light on just some of that work happening across our system and show the depth and variety of the talent we have within it and our commitment to use everything at our disposal for the benefit of local people.”
Sharon Boundy, Director of Transformation and Digital, Frimley ICS and Connected Care said, “Through our partnership with Graphnet, it is ground-breaking that we are able to identify individuals most at risk of socio-economic challenges, proactively contact them and support them to achieve better health outcomes.”
Talking about his shortlisted Hypertension project Dr Bharan Kumar, GP Partner and Clinical Director for SHAPE Primary Care Network, Slough explained “We knew as we transitioned out of the COVID-19 pandemic that we had two challenges to address:
“Poor Hypertension outcomes for those who were living in an area of high deprivation and who were struggling to manage other long-term conditions and the significant reduction in footfall to practices after lock downs and restrictions, which meant continuing to rely on previous methods of recording patient blood pressures in practice would be ineffective and unsustainable.
“To address these we developed a new pathway, using readily available technologies. This approach has enabled us to demonstrate that it is possible to achieve consistently high positive outcomes for patients and staff, reducing health inequalities and costs and most importantly improving the patient experience.”
Dr Priya Kumar, Health Inequalities Lead Slough and Transformational Clinical Lead for Connected Care said of her shortlisted project “69% of Frimley Health and Care's deprived population lives in Slough, Berkshire.
“We focussed in on a subsection of our population that we knew were having the hardest struggles and asked them to complete a questionnaire. This helped us to identify areas of perceived burden, like payment of household bills, lack of food or clothing, mental well-being, and digital inaccessibility.
“The responses informed the subsequent targeted interventions which supported people through a partnership approach and digitally created a powerful dataset that informs our social commissioning offer.”
The full list of award shortlisted finalists from Frimley Health and Care is:
Digital Innovator of the Year
- Frimley Health and Care ICS - Digital Innovation in Emergency Departments: Redirecting Care with Connected Care Solutions
- Kumar Medical Centre and Frimley ICB - Reducing Health Inequalities in Slough
Generating Impact in Population Health though Digital
- Frimley Health and Care ICS - Reducing Health Inequalities in Slough
Optimising Clinical Pathways through Digital
- Frimley Health and Care ICS – Digitally Led Hypertension Care
Reducing Health Inequalities through Digital
- Frimley Health and Care ICS - Reducing Health Inequalities in Slough
- Frimley Health and Care ICS - Digitally Led Hypertension Care
The HSJ Digital Award winners will be announced at a ceremony in Manchester on June 22. Details of all of the finalists can on the HSJ website.