Digital transformation involves various kinds of effort. It is certainly not all about technologies. It can be said that only a relatively small part of the effort is directly about digital, whereas all the rest is about societal and organisational transformation. These include the transformation of services.
Two useful areas of EHTEL work , which first started around 2017, support this notion: one on service readiness and the other on innovation adoption.
Service readiness
EHTEL has placed its focus on creating a Service Readiness Level model (SRL model) as a complement of the internationally well-known Technology Readiness Level. The association’s objective has always been to help healthcare innovators to define a roadmap for innovation so that they can scale up their innovations practically, in real life, in the field.
An EHTEL article and accompanying report described the underpinning concept of the SRL model, and originated from evidence provided by three European regions.
A published article on the overall services readiness stage model featured in the Health Management Org magazine.
The SRL model concept was taken over by EHTEL Member, the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, whose researchers extended the idea. They published an open access article under the title “Scaling Digital Health Innovation: Developing a New ‘Service Readiness Level’ Framework of Evidence”. The article describes how to build a digital health innovation case for scale, using what evidence and what data.
Innovation adoption
EHTEL has continued to take its work in the direction of innovation adoption. Its initiatives were produced in the context of the DigitalHealthUptake project. The result was a mapping out of a series of tools and methods which can help implementers to scale up their innovation(s) in the field. The tools support adoption and scale-up.
Three publications – known as executive digests and blueprints – on these tools/methods are of particular interest.
- An Executive Digest to support adoption
- An Executive Digest to support scale-upAn Adoption Blueprint
- An Adoption Blueprint
Source: DHU's "Adoption Blueprint for digital health uptake and scale-up"
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Taking this work forward in 2025, EHTEL will be focusing on how these tools/methods can support implementers. For example, how can these tools/methods can effect change? What kinds of capacities/competences are needed to help put tools/methods into practice? How can change management succeed and how should it be managed? What does all this mean for health and care workforces? Look out especially for how to assess levels of digital maturity in the field of integrated long-term care.