The new digital skills map for health professionals is now available

The COMPDIG-Salut project has published a new version of the Digital Skills Map for Healthcare Professionals. The new document is an update of the first skills map published in 2021 and is based on the analysis of digital skills frameworks from other regions and/or areas and the findings from the latest studies drawn up within the framework of the project.

As pointed out by the coordinator of COMPDIG-Salut and head of Training and Medical Imaging at the TIC Salut Social Foundation, Elisenda Reixach, “the map defines the digital skills to be achieved to make an effective, critical and responsible use of ICT”. She also adds, “it is the starting point for developing appropriate educational content for training healthcare professionals”.

As the main novelty, the map includes a skill for Cybersecurity, which identifies the need for the health professional to be able to identify potential external threats to technological systems, and take measures to protect themselves from attacks, intrusions or infections that occur in the network, or find help to build in protective measures.

Areas and digital skills in health

The map includes a total of 11 specific digital skills for health professionals, structured in four areas: management and analysis, communication and collaboration, digital awareness and professional development. We list the skills below, distributed in their corresponding areas:

Management and analysis:

• Data management: management of health and social data and information, in any of its phases and coming from different information sources and formats.
• Data analysis: analysis and interpretation of data and data sets with the help of algorithms, artificial intelligence, digital big data.

Communication and collaboration:

• Communication: encouraging communication, interaction and the exchange of health and social information and data through digital tools adapted to the different stakeholders involved.
• Collaboration: enhancing and promoting networked collaboration between the different stakeholders with shared goals and objectives.
• Digital contents: creation, publication and sharing of digital content related to health, valuing the context and the most appropriate channel and attending to the target and the recipients.

Digital awareness:

• Data Protection: ensuring compliance with protocols, regulatory frameworks and regulations on privacy, confidentiality and protection of health and social information and data.
• Ethics, civility and digital well-being: Conscious and balanced application of ethical principles, being civic-minded and knowing how to make a responsible and healthy use of digital technologies, avoiding the possible consequences of excessive or inappropriate use.
• Cybersecurity: protecting oneself from external threats arising from digital technologies and their use.

Professional development:

• Digital autonomy and technical problem solving: being constantly trained up and updated in e-health.
• Digital identity: managing one’s professional digital identity and ensuring an optimal digital reputation.
• Digital transformation: participating in and promoting the digital transformation in the field of health.

Pilot test

Last June, the project conducted a pilot test to evaluate the first training session developed for competency in Ethics, Citizenship and Digital Well-being. 16 health professionals, mainly from the Xiscat network, and 14 training managers participated in the pilot. The results, which will be available in September, will provide possible indicators on the effectiveness of the training material developed and determine how the participants have perceived it.

About the COMPDIG-Salut project

The COMPDIG-Salut project is promoted by the TIC Salut Social Foundation, the Department of Health and the Department of Business, and is part of Challenge 4 of the Professional Dialogue Forum. The goal behind the challenge is to improve health professionals’ ICT skills, advance the use of ICT to promote more personal care, and further the design of non-face-to-face care services.

The map was updated thanks to the entities backing the project and the funding received through the Technical Support Instrument of the European Union and the participation of the company NTT Data and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

The updates stemmed from the finding previously obtained in different studies such as Estudi exploratori del nivell de competències digitals dels professionals de salut [Exploratory study of the level of digital skills of health professionals], the Pilotatge del Model d’Avaluació de Competències Digitals en Salut [Piloting the Model for the Evaluation of Digital Skills in Health], and the article ‘Measuring the Digital Skills of Catalan Health Care Professionals as a Key Step Toward a Strategic Training Plan: Digital Competence Test Validation Study’ published in the scientific journal JMIR.

More information:

• Interactive version of the map
• Print version of the map