DIG-SOP-002: Digital Care System Assessment and Management

At a glance

• Assess every digital care system before it is introduced: costs, benefits, interoperability and possible unintended effects.
• Record the assessment on DIG-FRM-002, signed by the clinical and IT leads.
• Do not adopt a system on vendor claims alone.
• Review each system after go-live and at least yearly.
• Stop and get help straight away if: a system is in clinical use with no completed assessment.

Step 1. Define the need.

• Write the clinical problem the system will solve, the patients affected, and how success will be measured.

Key point: A system without a stated problem will be hard to evaluate later.

Step 2. Assess costs and benefits.

• Estimate costs: purchase, training, support, interfaces, and staff time.
• Estimate benefits and how they will be measured.
• Record the comparison on DIG-FRM-002.

Key point: Cost and benefit must be compared with real figures, not the vendor brochure.

Step 3. Assess interoperability.

• List every system the new tool must exchange data with.
• Test each link in a non-live environment.
• Record each risk from non-interoperability and its mitigation.

Key point: Two systems that do not talk create the most common data errors.

Step 4. Assess unintended consequences.

• Ask the clinical lead and two front-line staff what could go wrong: extra workload, duplication, alert fatigue, data errors or delay.
• Record each possible effect and how it will be prevented or checked.

Key point: Ask the people who will use it, not only the people who buy it.

Step 5. Decide and manage implementation.

• The approver decides on the basis of the record.
• Manage go-live with a named owner, training, a fall-back plan and a support route.

Key point: A fall-back plan is needed before go-live, not after the first failure.

Step 6. Review.

• Review the system after three months of use, and yearly after that.
• Record the findings and actions.

Key point: Systems change, and so do the risks.