Digital health maturity in your general practice is key to enhancing outcomes, communication and care coordination along the patient journey. WNSW PHN supports healthcare providers in measuring and improving your digital health maturity through tailored resources, training and digital health tools that strengthen practices and improve patient care.
A digitally mature healthcare practice is one that thinks “digital first.” This involves using appropriate digital tools throughout the entire patient journey, from initial contact to follow-up care. It is not just about using clinical software but ensuring every aspect of the patient’s care is enhanced by digital solutions. Practices with high digital health maturity integrate tools such as telehealth, My Health Record, secure messaging, and more into their daily workflows to improve patient care and practice efficiency.
In recent years, we’ve recognised that improving consumer engagement in healthcare leads to better patient outcomes, service innovation and system development. This includes identifying service gaps, system improvements, issues that are important to consumers and how their needs may best be met, so that health services are relevant and effective. Further, involving consumers builds trust and demonstrates a commitment to collecting, learning from and making changes based on their healthcare experiences, to continually adapt services and systems to better meet the needs of consumers.
At WNSW PHN, we have developed a Digital Health Maturity Assessment tool – the digital health maturity ladder – that helps primary healthcare providers measure their current level of digital health adoption. This tool supports practices in determining their strengths and areas for improvement, providing a clear roadmap for progressing toward higher digital health maturity.
The assessment is used to support a differentiated approach to change and adoption based on digital maturity, supporting the development of change techniques that are specific and tailored to both individual and local health service needs. For the WNSW PHN, the insights provided allow us to better understand the use of digital health, and to use this knowledge to provide targeted support based upon individual provider needs.
The tool measures the relative maturity of general practices, Aboriginal medical services, allied health practices, pharmacies and residential aged care homes.
The tool was developed to:
Improving your digital health capability is essential for continuous quality improvement in healthcare. By enhancing your practice’s digital capabilities, you can deliver more effective and efficient care, improve patient satisfaction, and stay ahead in an increasingly digital world. Digital health maturity:
A digital health maturity assessment can assist in helping stakeholders reveal the context for quality improvement initiatives. Understanding context is about considering those internal and external factors that influence opportunities and challenges in the practice. A digital health maturity assessment is just one way you can determine barriers and enablers or inform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats).
Once this is completed, you can move forward with a stepwise approach to growing digital maturity and capability over time, which is continuous quality improvement.
If you’re ready to assess your practice’s digital health maturity or need assistance improving your digital health capabilities, contact our Digital Health team. We offer ongoing support to help your practice embrace digital health and continue improving patient care.
