Welsh government launches digital and data strategy for health and care

Wales’ health minister Eluned Morgan has launched the Welsh government’s Digital and Data Strategy for Health and Social Care.

This 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 health and social care services, improve the patient experience, and empower people to manage their health.

As well as AI tools, examples of how digital is being used within NHS Wales and the types of innovation the Digital and Data Strategy wants to encourage include the NHS Wales App, Welsh Ambulance Service’s Electronic Patient Clinical Record, the Welsh Nursing Care Record and the Cancer Informatics System.

Morgan said: ‘By embracing new technologies we can transform how we interact with the NHS, find new ways to save lives and increase performance across health and social care.

‘Innovative and effective use of data-driven technology, moving to digital heath care and exploiting new technology is vital if we are to meet the soaring demand and increasing pressures on our NHS.

‘Wales is pioneering digital health care and the modernisation of the NHS will be driven by digital, data and innovation in the years to come. This is why I am lunching the refreshed Digital and Data Strategy for Health and Social Care strategy. This sets out how we can put digital at the heart of our plans to increase the use of digital and harness technological advances to improve health care in Wales, and help people to lead happier, healthier and longer lives.’

Morgan referred to the IBEX Galen AI platform, which is being trialled in suspected breast cancer cases at Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board after successful trials analysing prostate biopsies saw a 13 percent increase in cancer detection.

Funded through the Welsh government’s Innovation Fund, the AI tool automatically analyses digital images of pathology samples, classifying them through a traffic light system, as having a higher or lower likelihood of cancer, prior to a review by clinicians.

By classifying the images, the most urgent cases are prioritised, and patient outcomes are improved through faster diagnosis and potentially having to undergo fewer biopsies and additional testing, the Welsh government said.

The IBEX AI platform is now undergoing further testing within six health boards with an eye to making it part of routine prostate cancer testing supporting clinical teams to and assess its use in the diagnosis of additional cancers.

Dr Muhammad Aslam, consultant pathologist and Betsi Cadwaladr’s clinical director of North Wales Diagnostic and Clinical Support Services, said: ‘I previously said the use of artificial intelligence for diagnosis and prognosis of cancers puts us ‘at the crossroads of an exciting new world’.

‘I firmly believe this and it is wonderful to see the use of, what I like to call assistive intelligence, is being replicated across Wales.

‘I’m proud Betsi Cadwaladr was the first health board in the UK to forge a path with its clinical use, with the help of the Welsh government’s Small Business Research Initiative Wales funding.’

News of the Welsh government announcing a new digital healthcare strategy has come as a new app has also been launched in Scotland to assist health staff.

Image: Chris Curry