SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT
" We ' ve had technology-enabled care programmes for well over 10 years ," Cameron adds . " I think that reflects the remote and rural nature of Scotland . If you ' re in the Western Isles or in Orkney and Shetland , for example , getting access to certain clinicians can be very challenging . You ' ve got to work in very imaginative ways . We ' ve had great take-up in terms of things like blood pressure monitoring services and , more recently , on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ( COPD ), so people don ' t need to come into hospital for a routine check-up because they can rely on the equipment and the digital readout of how the patient reports they are feeling .”
" The consultant can see them without having to necessarily see them face-to-face . We ' ve saved a number of acute visit follow-ups that way ."
Another benefit of video consultations has been reducing the impact of conventional healthcare services on the environment : “ We actually had the concept of Health Miles before COVID-19 . We ’ ve had tremendous success reducing journeys by using video consulting , and I think it ' s a great example of how we ’ re supporting environmental efforts going into COP26 . Digital health and care has a big role to play in this , which we ’ ve shown through the work we ' ve done with Oxford University on Near Me .”
A data-driven approach Cameron and his team are about to embark on a consultation for a data strategy , which will be Scotland ’ s firstever dedicated Data Strategy for Health and Social Care . This will include detailed consideration of how to increase citizens ’ trust and transparency in data sharing , as well as addressing issues around ethics and legislative requirements . " We want to
have that conversation about how to use data safely , and to discuss what is ethically the right thing to do . We actually put an ethics framework in place as part of our COVID-19 work . I think the foundations of ethics and information governance need to be in place before you get into things like AI . Trying to make data-driven decisions , and using data as a way of driving innovation runs through a lot of what we do in Scotland .”
This work is being led by the Data Lab , Scotland ' s Innovation Centre for Data and AI . “ Our idea is that we will join up data in lots of different ways to drive better outcomes for patients , or better decision-
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