Phase II 2018 - 2019
- Develop and overarching plan for the implementation of Phase I report recommendations.
- Compile work that has taken place since the publication of the report to make links across new and emerging structures.
- Promote a cultural shift amongst referring clinicians through engagement with referrers.
- Undertake a high-level scoping exercise to ascertain the sticking points to implementation of the DOG recommendations and develop a plan in response to this.
- Develop an Atlas of Variation for diagnostic laboratories to provide a way to identify and target unwarranted variation in test requesting.
- Engage with clinical networks at a national, regional and local level around specific conditions to develop and implement requesting guidelines which could be referenced at a board level.
- Establish a mechanism for ongoing best practice sharing.
- Identify and coordinate quality improvement champions at a local level who could support a series of tests of change to spread learning.
Phase I - 2016 - 2017
- Provide a current snapshot of existing demand optimisation activity across Scotland.
- Define demand optimisation strategy for local implementation.
- Explore and pilot diagnostic requesting data collection models including a possible future: Atlas of variation for Scotland and Enhanced Educational Feedback system for primary care.
- To develop guidance on local health board governance structures to support demand optimisation activity.
- To develop guidance on demand optimisation issues for IT procurement and implementation.
- Effective Care/ Diagnostic Pathways - to explore examples of patient pathways utilising diagnostic tests in order to define best practice and availability.
- Define a working integrated structure for demand optimisation that utilises and links national oversight with local activity and implementation via the diagnostic networks, healthcare science leads and other stakeholder input.