UK Department of Health and Social Care announce new commitment to improve data-sharing and interoperability

The latest draft policy report from the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care “Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data” is an important step forward to creating a data infrastructure that improves the lives of patients and support healthcare professionals to deliver the best possible care.

The challenges of interoperability and data sharing across the NHS and social care systems are not just well documented but are experienced by thousands of people in a multitude of different ways, every single day. Now, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, the need for a solution has never been more evident.

Getting data sharing and privacy right in healthcare is high stakes, in some cases, even life or death. This new strategy is a clear commitment to utilize a new generation of technology that puts people in control of their own information and opens up new opportunities for how we interact with health services.

Decentralized personal data stores are a technology that allows a person’s data from multiple sources to be brought together into their own data store. This approach relies on the concept of separating data from the systems that hold it to create a network of decentralized personal data stores. Information is uncoupled from systems in hospitals or general practice and is brought together with data from wearable devices and home monitoring technology, or data entered directly by the citizen and/or an authorised representative in to one single place – PODS.