The Problem
Countries with ageing populations face rising healthcare costs. It is widely acknowledged that more integrated social and health care would lead to better patient outcomes and greater efficiencies. For example, doctors in a health care setting with access to day-to-day information about their patient in social care, could provide pro-active treatment for conditions earlier and avoid hospitalisation.
A significant barrier to more integrated care is the inability to share health information between different health and social agencies effectively. This is due to slow, manual sharing governance processes and the lack of a data sharing technology infrastructure.
The Solution: Southampton Social Data Foundation for Health and Social Care
In the UK a collaboration between the University of Southampton, University Hospital Southampton and Southampton City Council seeks to improve care through the establishment of the world’s first Social Data Foundation. Its aim is to facilitate trustworthy multi-party data sharing.
Through the creation of a data trust service platform and a well-regulated legal structure they plan to automate legally compliant, ethically governed patient information sharing between authorised clinical health, community health, and social care providers. The social data foundation will be overseen by an independent governing body and an inclusive decision-making body representative of the local community.
The partners at Southampton are pioneering this new data stewardship foundation to meet the needs of the local community, but it’s clearly an approach that could benefit communities everywhere leading to better health outcomes and reduced costs of care.
Key Benefits
- Improved patient outcomes
- Better public health outcomes
- Lower cost care
