About The Right Decision Service
Purpose
The Right Decision Service provides a single Go-To place for access to:
- Quality assured decision support resources for Scotland’s health and social care professionals.
- Tools, guidance and support for Scotland’s health and social care professionals to create decision support solutions to defined quality and regulatory standards.
It adopts a platform approach to creation of decision support solutions, providing:
- A Once for Scotland toolset for building informational decision support content and intelligent algorithms based on validated health and social care guidance.
- Web and desktop APIs for integrating content and algorithms into an ecosystem of external applications.
The national Decision Support Programme
The Right Decision Service is an output from the national Decision Support Programme, which is managed by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) on behalf of the Scottish Government Digital Health and Care Directorate. The national Decision Support Programme delivers on a key objective within Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy - to: “Expand the use of knowledge mobilisation and decision support tools and services to support frontline practice, self-management and shared decision making.”
Mission Statement
The mission of the Decision Support Programme is to:
“Provide a ‘Once for Scotland’ source of digital tools that empowers professionals and citizens to make the best decisions possible about their health and care.
This will enable easy access to evidence and the practical use of that evidence tailored to people’s individual needs.”
Definition of decision support
The Decision Support Programme defines decision support as follows:
“Decision support tools combine validated evidence and guidance with the needs of individual citizens, to present reliable recommendations for action at key points in day to day activities and working processes.”
The programme focuses primarily on delivery of:
- Informational decision support solutions – for example, mobile apps and websites which package up summarised evidence, guidance and pathways for quick and easy access at point of care.
- Knowledge-based expert systems – i.e. intelligent algorithms which computerise validated health and social care guidance and evidence.
The programme is also committed to exploring the potential of data-driven decision support – for example, in the form of machine learning and natural language processing – for the longer term.