Digital Clinical Safety Award  

Digital Clinical Safety Award  
Digital Clinical Safety Award  
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Digital technologies can enhance safety by ensuring that critical information is provided in a timely manner and by automating processes to make them more efficient while reducing the risk of error. However, with the increasing use of algorithms, AI, and other systems, it is essential that digital innovations are implemented safely to prevent unintended harm. The NHS is committed to fostering a culture of clinical safety as it moves towards the new government’s 10-year plan, which is set to be finalised in Spring 2025.

This award will go to an organisation, team or project that has gone above and beyond to both ensure the technologies used in health and care are safe, and then using them to further improve patient safety. Winners will display strong collaboration between different departments and stakeholders to ensure risks are understood and manage effectively, openness in sharing information, and iterative change based on learning from events.

Eligibility

  • All NHS organisations (including providers, partnerships and systems), General Practice and primary care organisations.
  • Evidence must relate to a project, ongoing or completed within the 2 years up until the award entry deadline.

Ambition

  • Describe the emerging digital patient safety challenges your organisation or health system faces with the rapid rise in digital transformation, and how you are working to alleviate them.
  • Discuss who takes accountability for digital safety, and how you aim to balance the need for quick, agile implementation of new innovations and technologies with the need for safety evidence generation.
  • Outline any specific projects or initiatives undertaken, including their aims and intended measures of success.

Outcome

  • Evidence with supporting information the performance of the projects undertaken against targets, including any financial, clinical and safety metrics.
  • Discuss your mechanisms for clinical risk assessment, incident reporting and response and how these are improving digital clinical safety across the organisation/system.
  • Share how you have ensured technology adoption/implementations across the system comply with relevant standards and regulations, including the DTAC, data security standards and ISO compliance for medical devices.

Value

  • Clearly evidence the beneficial impacts on staff, patients and quality of care of your projects, programmes or products.
  • If possible, provide evidence of value creation in other areas, in terms of reduced adverse events (and therefore investigatory/litigation costs), improved efficiencies or direct financial savings.
  • Discuss how the commitment to and work within digital clinical safety has provided a boost to the wider vision for patient safety within your organisation/system, and how it will achieve lasting impact.

Involvement

  • Describe and provide testimonial evidence of the working relationship between any technology partners (if relevant) and the NHS organisation that enable genuinely co-produced, digitally clinically safe products or projects.
  • Evidence how important information about potential risks are shared across the organisation to ensure appropriate escalation and mitigation activity.
  • Share how patients, staff and the public were included and placed at the heart of digital safety.

Spread

  • Describe how you have raised awareness of the importance of digital safety and shared best practice across or beyond your organisation/system.
  • Evidence how you have developed a culture of iterative learning based on feedback loops and/or safety events, to embed digital clinical safety as everyone’s responsibility across the organisation or system.
  • Discuss the scope for further replication or scaling up of your projects in other settings.

To find out more

Partnership opportunities:  Sponsorship Sales Team
Awards entry enquiries: Delegate Sales Team
Judging and event management: Awards Support