1. Methodology

This report provides a summary of findings from the 2024 update to the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment originally conducted amongst 41 organisations from within the Scottish healthcare and social care sector between April and July 2023.

Participating organisations were able to update their original submissions as often as necessary; at least one update to the entire assessment was required to be completed by 31st July 2024.

In addition to the original survey of over 400 questions, additional questions pertaining to specific subjects like the integration of health and social care and software as a medical device were added for the first time.

A bespoke online platform, which offered participants a number of relevant benefits in order to complete the survey efficiently, was used to host the survey. Those benefits included the ability to answer questions and sections in any order, the ability to assign whole sections to different colleagues, the ability to poll any number of colleagues on any number of questions to get their input on determining the best response, the ability to issue a generalized, shorter version of the assessment as a survey to general staff anonymously as a way of aiding respondents in finding their most appropriate assessment response, the ability to conduct remote and in-person conferences to work through any part of the assessment as a group, the ability to see further information for each question, including a definition of ‘what good looks like’, the ability to include notes with their submission, the ability to deposit supporting evidence with their submission, and the ability to contact support in real time to get assistance with technical matters and questions about the survey content.

Further support was provided via two drop-in sessions per month held via MS Teams throughout the data collection period.

Overall, more than 600 participants from 31 organisations collaborated on the submissions for the 2024 assessment update, indicating that overall, participating organisations have made use of the assessment platforms’ capabilities for managing the completion of the assessment. It also indicates that coordinators have indeed drawn on the insight and expertise of their colleagues in order to solicit accurate, informed responses to the assessment.

Additionally, more than 7,000 general staff[3] from over 20 organisations completed the staff survey, easily exceeding responses received during data collection in 2023. Those statistics illustrate the engagement and interest in digital ways of working among the Scottish healthcare and social care workforce and should serve as encouragement to continue prioritizing digital transformation nationally.

[3] Includes responses from staff in Nursing or Midwifery, Allied Health Professionals, Medical, Senior Leadership, Department or Specialist Leads, Corporate and Admin Staff, Pharmacists, Dental Professionals, Emergency Call Handlers and Dispatchers, Social Care or Social Work Professionals working in Community Healthcare, Primary Care, Acute Healthcare, Mental Health, Children’s Social Care, Adult Social Care and Ambulance Services.

2. Assessment Structure

The assessment is divided into three themes, each of which includes a number of sections. For some sections, responses were sought separately by service type.

[A chart illustrating the structure of the assessment.]

For the 2024 update to the assessment, questions about the following topics were added to the assessment:

• Software as a medical device
• Integration of healthcare and social care

3. Scoring and Weighting

For the most part, the questions in the digital maturity assessment are qualitative in nature and use a Likert-style answer option scale. To enable some of our analysis, we have assigned scores to each answer option:

• Disagree completely (Score: 0)
• Somewhat disagree (Score: 25)
• Neither agree nor disagree (Score: 50)
• Somewhat agree (Score: 75)
• Agree completely (Score: 100)
• Don’t know (Score: 0)
• Not applicable (Not scored)

Additionally, some of the capabilities sections include quantitative questions to assess aspects around the degree of proliferation of participants’ digital practices. These questions use a percentage scale with the following score assignments:

• 0% (Score: 0)
• 1% to 20% (Score: 20)
• 21% to 40% (Score: 40)
• 41% to 60% (Score: 60)
• 61% to 80% (Score: 80)
• 81% to 100A% (Score: 100)
• Don’t know (Score: 0)
• Not applicable (Not scored)

One of the quantitative questions within the Records, Assessments & Plans section, which concerns the format of digital records held, uses the following answers options and associated scores:

• Unstructured (Score: 0)
• Semi-structured (Score: 50)
• Structured (Score: 100)

No weighting by theme, section, service or question has been applied (while it is obvious that not all theme/sections/services/questions carry the same weight, it is the conclusion of our subject matter experts that this will vary greatly for every individual organisation and that a generalised weighting would do more to distort reporting than to enhance it).

Aggregations in this report are performed following the assessment’s hierarchy: Questions are aggregated into services (where available), questions or services into sections, and sections are aggregated into themes. Disregarding this hierarchy (E.g., by aggregating questions into themes) may produce varying results.

4. Score Homogeneity

Throughout this report, we’re relying on averages calculated for different parts of our data; sometimes, this may include all data collected; at other times we might only use data from a relevant subsection of the data (for example, “mental health services”).

We have provided extra analysis whenever necessary to demonstrate the consistency or homogeneity of the data we are using. That’s because health and social care in Scotland is often fragmented, and we feel that the degree to which that affects digital maturity can often be very relevant.

No information pertaining to any single participating organisation has been published here, and no comparisons between individual organisations have been included.

5. Updates and Future Assessments

Although participating organisations were able to update their assessment at times of their own choosing, in practice most delivered their updates just prior to the annual deadline.

However, we expect participating organisations to make better use of the facilities the assessment offers going forward.

6. Contacts

If you have any questions about this report or the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment, please contact sg@dma.works.

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