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Leveraging Technology for Social Care

Learn how to assess, design and implement health technologies that make a tangible difference to social healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes.

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Frontline care solutions are expanding rapidly, particularly for children and adults with long term illnesses, physical disabilities and learning disabilities, as well as the older population. Technology solutions are increasingly needed to meet the demand across social care, social services, social protection, social work and residential care facilities. Personalised care at home services enable customers to remain in familiar and supportive settings, while creating more efficiency for social healthcare organisations. 

Health and healthcare managers need to understand how to use and leverage appropriate health technologies to empower customers in their communities and to drive better health outcomes. This course is an opportunity to learn about the different digital solutions that are increasingly available, as well as to undertake health technology assessments and to understand benefits versus costs of implementation. Through case studies and frameworks, participants will learn to assess, design, implement and rapidly prototype solutions that are cost effective and offer good customer experiences and outcomes.

Designed to help build both competencies and confidence among leaders and managers in social care in the area of health technology, this course closes the gap from knowing to doing, increasing the capacity for high impact leadership in social healthcare organisations.

What’s involved:

  • Developed to enable participants to effectively design, assess and deliver social healthcare technology solutions, this course blends theory with case studies and frameworks, helping participants apply learning directly to their social healthcare organisations. 
  • The content for this course covers health technology, design thinking and project management – all tailored to the application in social healthcare settings. You’ll learn how to undertake health technology assessments, how to determine the benefits against costs, and methods of evaluating health technologies in relation to customer experience and outcomes. You’ll also look in more depth at working with stakeholders to create implementation plans, rapid prototyping to minimise the cost of failure, and developing a constant improvement approach so improvements and agile working are built into the process.
  • You’ll learn the key features of technology for social healthcare in an action learning environment, where content is delivered as a tool to provoke discussion and make you think about your own healthcare organisation. A safe space for healthcare professionals to come together, you will have ample opportunity to ask questions, share thoughts and seek insights from both the instructors and your peers.

Who is this programme for?

Our Leveraging Technology for Social Care short course is for leaders and managers across the health and healthcare sector, who have a need to advance their understanding of health technologies in relation to social care. You may work in a clinical setting, policymaking or healthcare management, or you may work in an industry related to health that requires an understanding of leveraging technology for social care.

Programme curriculum

This course is based on a contextualised approach to learning, with online lectures delivered by the course lead and UCL academics. This is supplemented by reading, participant discussion questions and marked assignments. Much of the learning will be directed through real world case studies and project-based learning from your course lead, who is an expert in healthcare technology for social care.

You’ll learn material paced across three modules over a total of six weeks. Each module involves approximately 10 to 12 hours of content, which includes videos, reading, discussion forum activities and project assignments. A weekly session with your course lead also provides the opportunity to pull learning together and get involved in group discussion. 

Throughout the course, you will complete self-assessments such as multiple choice quizzes and unmarked self-reflection exercises to help you work through the material. To receive a certificate of completion for this course, you will complete all the marked assignments for each module, which includes a mandatory discussion forum, short written assignments and a final project.  

Modules

Health Technology for Social Care

This module is designed to provide a broad base of knowledge about the relevant health technologies for social care. You will also learn about assessing health technologies through both needs assessment and cost-benefit approaches, and look in more depth at stakeholder mapping and engagement frameworks. Helping you drive forward health innovations in practice, you will also learn about navigating power relationships to gain funding.

Design Thinking for Social Care

Introducing you to health innovation practices in the UK and other healthcare systems, this module will demonstrate the various health technologies that are improving social care. You will learn about the impact of digital health on health ecosystems worldwide, and understand how design thinking and design principles can lead to better health innovations as well as cost savings.

Project Management

Equipping you with project management skills and an understanding of relevant processes, this module will enable you to run projects effectively. You will learn about structured ways of managing projects which emphasise dividing projects into management stages, as well as agile project management to deliver projects throughout their lifecycles.

Programme Faculty

Dr. Chris Hardesty - visiting lecturer at UCL GBSH - Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Centre of Excellence (KPMG)

Dr. Chris Hardesty is a visiting lecturer at GBSH and a member of KPMG's Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Centre of Excellence, presently based in Singapore looking after developments in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior postings have included Europe, US, and South America. With experience across a range of geographies and project types, his passion is public-private partnerships to drive innovate, safe, and economically-viable initiatives in the sector.

On completion of the Leveraging Technology for Social Care short course, you will be able to:

  • Appreciate the need for technology in social care settings, and how it can be used to develop social care solutions that solve human centred challenges.
  • Use assessment techniques, incorporating costing and project management practices, to implement new systems and thinking within healthcare organisations.
  • Apply practices of change and innovation management.
  • Explain the key challenges for implementing health technology in a social care organisation.
  • Identify problems, find solutions, rapidly prototype and design a means for scaling and implementing new technology products in a social care setting.
  • Understand the difference between traditional project management and agile methodology.

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