Intended for healthcare professionals

News

Upskill doctors to make the most of new medical technologies, report says

BMJ 2018; 361 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2861 (Published 28 June 2018) Cite this as: BMJ 2018;361:k2861
  1. Abi Rimmer
  1. The BMJ

Doctors need training to make success of new technologies, a report on the digital future of the NHS has said.

As part of Health Education England’s (HHE) development of a 10 year strategy for the NHS, Eric Topol, a digital medicine researcher, was commissioned to set up a review of how the workforce needed to be prepared to work with new technologies.12

An interim report, published this month, said that in the future doctors would need training in areas such as “genomics or artificial intelligence algorithms and the ability to analyse and understand the implications of big datasets in the provision of future healthcare services, as well as a major increase in digital literacy.”

It said that training the existing medical workforce, as well as future staff, “will be key to the success of any programme of change designed to empower staff to take advantage of the advances in technology to improve service delivery.”

The review said that GPs would need to be trained in genomics. “For example, they will increasingly need to incorporate polygenic risk scores in assessing risk of various chronic diseases and implementing primary prevention,” the report said.

GPs will also need to “have a sufficient knowledge of genomics to have a sensible dialogue with patients across a spectrum of questions,” it said.

The review also proposed three key principles for HEE’s workforce strategy. The first is that patients should be “empowered by new tools to become more actively involved and engaged in their care.” The second is that the introduction of any technology “must be grounded in robust research evidence and a fit for purpose and ethical governance framework that patients, public, and staff can all trust.” And the third is that “whenever possible, the adoption of technology should be used to give more time for care, creating an environment in which the patient-clinician relationship is enhanced.”

The review is now calling for evidence from people who have experience of introducing or developing technologies in health and care. Evidence can be submitted to https://topol.hee.nhs.uk/welcome.

References