2 Making care digital

In Wales, the digital health and social care strategy [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]  suggests that professionals will need to be supported in order to change practice and incorporate technology into care. Staff in health and social care in Wales will be expected to:

• be able to capture information about the service and input this information correctly into the electronic record
• be able to understand the electronic record and other technological sources of data and information about the service user to offer coordinated and ‘joined up’ care
• use technological tools to communicate where appropriate (e.g. email, text and videoconferencing)
• use data to look at outcomes and make improvements to the services where appropriate (such as learning from errors or incidents)
• keep up-to-date with digital and technological changes and be skilled enough to engage with new ways of working.

In the next section, you will discover more about how these changing ways of working might be experienced by using an example from healthcare settings.