FEATURE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Designing content felt like another world – a Silicon Valley , non-clinical world . I reminded myself that we had all done this before , working with multidisciplinary teams across numerous digital health projects , but this was the first one I was leading .
I gained further experience and skills in digital co-design , using my core occupational therapy skills , such as facilitation of user groups and analytical thinking . current professional registration who has been trained in clinical risk management and is accountable for clinical safety on a project ’ ( NHS 2019 ).
This also provided me with a close network of peers to test and discuss the risk management work that might be needed should COG-OT move to the next stage of development . I also had access to the author of the standards to support my learning and development .
Figure two : Topic areas
To meet our aim of supporting safe digital practice , ‘ e-safety ’ was always going to be one of our core topics , encouraging colleagues to become familiar with NHS Digital Clinical Safety Standard DCB0160 ( NHS Digital 2020 ), which is mandatory under the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act ( 2012 ).
The standard requires a health organisation ‘ to establish a framework within which the clinical risks associated with the deployment and implementation of a new or modified health IT system are properly managed ’ ( NHS Digital 2019 ).
The occupational therapists in the team are all qualified as clinical safety officers ; I qualified midpandemic in July 2020 . This is a role within the standards that requires you to be a ‘ clinician with a
Go live and launch The next step was to create the information governance related elements and check the content in a live ‘ environment ’; this was a bit nerve wracking , but the developers uploaded it and the result was eight filterable topic areas , that would generate a downloadable set of questions and best practice resources to structure and drive holistic digital assessments .
It was amazing to see it there , all that work worth the effort ( see figure two ). We were up and running , all within six weeks .
COG-OT was aptly launched on National AHP day , on 14 Oct 2020 . We decided to promote it using our professional and peer contacts and networks , and Twitter for national coverage .
Initially it was opened to preceptors and then students before being opened to all occupational therapists in January 2021 . The idea of focusing initially on novice practitioners was in response to external stakeholders who were also supporting us as we launched .
With occupational therapy being on the national Shortage Occupation List , we could not afford to lose any early-stage colleagues , as pressure on placements and supervisors rose during the second COVID-19 wave .
Additional funding and insights In April 2021 , as part of the RCOT Annual Awards ( see page 56 ), Tunstall Healthcare sponsored a new award , The Tunstall Award for Technology Innovation in Occupational Therapy – ‘ supporting the innovative use of existing digital technology to support individuals , communities or occupational therapy service delivery in a real-world setting ’ ( RCOT 2021 ).
COG-OT won the award , which will now support software development to code an advanced pop-up survey enabling improved collection of user insights . Since then , we monitor the usage data , which includes the ‘ hits ’ and number of user sessions . To date , COG-OT has had 714 users and 4,700 page views . We saw an even split between desktop and
24 OTnews October 2021