Public Value and e-Health

This report from the UK institute for public policy research (IPPR) argues that the benefits of ICT to health services could be huge but risk being jeopardised by a failure to provide evidence of impact.

The following is reproduced from a press release published by IPPR on 27 July

The benefits of ICT to health services could be huge but risk being jeopardised by a failure to provide evidence of impact according to a report published on 27 July by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). The research – based on an examination of large ICT pilots in the NHS – concludes that public and political support for unprecedented spending on ICT investment in health services will not be realised without better planning and evaluation.

ippr’s report says that poor evaluation of pilot services – now being rolled out across the NHS – make it impossible to tell whether they will deliver the widely promised benefits. This includes trials of electronic patient records which failed to demonstrate that they would lead to more flexible services, cost savings or improvements in treatment of patients. In addition, pilots of electronic appointment booking systems have not clearly shown that they help facilitate greater choice for patients over where, when and by whom they are treated.

Jamie Bend, ippr Research Fellow and report author, said:

“The potential benefits of ICT use in the health service could be huge and make a real impact on the direct experience of patients and health professionals. This potential needs to be demonstrated in practice. Unless it’s proven that things like electronic health records work, it will remain difficult to justify to doctors, nurses and patients existing and additional spending on ICT. Few of the problems with evaluation are new, yet they continue to occur and there is a perception that ICT projects have failed. This is not a reason to reject the use of ICT but to redouble efforts to use it effectively.”

ippr recommends that:

• evaluations of ICT projects in health are always clearly linked to the stated aims of the projects;
• adequate time and resources should be allocated to evaluation; and
• appropriate data should be collected to examine the effectiveness of projects.

Click here to download the full analysis from the IPPR[pdf]