Kumar Medical Centre and NHS Frimley, scoop HSJ Digital Innovator of the Year
Huge congratulations to the shortlisted project teams at the recent HSJ Digital Awards held in Manchester.
The big winner was Kumar Medical Centre with partners NHS Frimley, for their work in reducing health inequalities in Slough.
The project won the award for Digital Innovator of the Year and was also highly commended in the categories of Reducing Health Inequalities through Digital and Generating Impact in Population Health through Digital.
Dr Priya Kumar, GP Partner at Kumar Medical Centre, Health Inequalities Lead for Slough and Transformational Clinical Lead with Connected Care, took to the stage to accept the award.
This achievement for Priya comes hot on the heels of being awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the recent King’s Birthday Honours for services to health improvement in the South East of England. You can read more about this here.
Priya said of the winning project “69% of Frimley’s underserved population lives in Slough, Berkshire.
“We focussed in on a subsection of our population that were identified as most in need and were asked to complete a questionnaire based on the wider determinants of health. 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 has further informed our social commissioning offer.”
On taking home the big award Priya said “To be recognised for this work is fantastic and my thanks go out to the entire team. It’s a privilege to connect with the community in Slough and come together with partners to put the right support in place for them.”
This work, and the other shortlisted projects, have 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 teams to empower patients to identify and manage their health and wellbeing more effectively and reduce health inequalities.
The full list of winners can be found on the HSJ website.
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, are able to identify and target areas, groups or individuals who can benefit from intervention and support to improve their health outcomes and experiences. Read more about Connected Care.