Less Boundary Spanners and Individual Innovators, and More Architecture?

Less Boundary Spanners and Individual Innovators, and More Architecture?

I have worked in the area of data sharing for almost a decade, and we have a highly successful spin-out company— Symphonic — and patents to show for it . But the barriers to sharing and in getting different elements of health and social care to work together are as difficult as they have ever been.

With Estonia, there has been true leadership from those who understand in how to bring systems together, along with integrating strong cybersecurity and citizen trust levels. But Scotland has struggled to move away from its silo’ed world of public sector data, and where the only real sign of change is a common internal identifier and in the creation of internal data lakes. There is no grand Estonian X-Road architecture, or Finnish service integration, or large-scale citizen involvement.

And so I came across a research paper published by Pearson et al [here] and which outlined the progress on health and social care integration in Scotland:

And there was a phrase that really stood out …

‘boundary spanners’

The more I thought about the term, the more it made sense, and drawn as a Venn Diagram it looks like this:

We must thus worry that our innovation is focused on individuals who are willing to provide bridges between different parts of our health and social care services. The digital interface to the citizen is not even shown on the Venn Diagram, as it doesn’t really exist in any meaningful form. I have attended many conferences over the years, and the same old questions are posted … “How do we create citizen-focused systems?”, and where little changes from year to year. Without a true road map, we are relying on individuals to step forward and be the ‘boundary spanner’.

Countries such as Finland and Estonia have shown that small countries can build integrated data infrastructures, and which put the rights of the citizen at the core. In Scotland we need our politicians to stand up for change, and to lead forward with an architecture — or road map — that starts to build a truly digital world. Cybersecurity must play a fundamental role.

The only post I receive through my letterbox these days is either junk mail or from the NHS/Council/Government, and where my digital interaction with government/council/health services is zero. I have meaningful digital identity, there is no digital signing, in fact, there is virtually no trace of anything in a meaningful digital sense.

We need to spend more money on using cybersecurity for good, and not just to catch bad people. Scotland has more than its fair share of cybersecurity professionals, and who, I am sure, would be filling to help support building a road map for the future of our public services.