Abstract

The need for collective intelligence in strategic health planning
The financial crisis, the increasing demand of services, and unfit infrastructure are driving NHS organisations to collaborate across sectoral boundaries and develop new patient-focused models of care.

To overcome this situation, Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships were created to provide a comprehensive strategic approach for health services in a certain region. However, the plans developed have proven to be ineffective and have received many criticisms. Under this perspective, this research is investigating ways to improve the strategic planning processes to achieve more adaptive and integrated strategies that span the long term.

Strategic health planning is a complex system with a wide range of stakeholders: health executives; clinicians; economic planners; health planners; estates managers; consultants; patients; and the wider public. The research proposes to break down the planning process into three streams: model of care; infrastructure; and financial planning. A successful strategic plan requires an integrated approach between the three planning streams, where knowledge is exchanged across professional and organisational boundaries.

The literature shows that the planning process is fragmented owing to issues such as: a lack of robust mechanisms linking the built environment to patient outcomes; a knowledge gap between health and economic planners; a disproportion between input of resources and resource use; a lack of conceptualisation of care pathways leading to poor implementation; a static planning approach of space and use over time; and a lack of data and evidence at a strategic level. The literature shows that the issues highlighted above are interdependent, leading to the need for an integrated approach.

The research investigates the need for collective intelligence to integrate processes of planning models of care, infrastructure, and finance. Collective intelligence has been generally defined as the ability of a group to perform a wide range of tasks, and is measured in a similar way to individual general intelligence. Studies show that collective intelligence could be improved by implementing structures and technologies. In this context, the current proposal undertakes a literature review in each area of planning models of care, infrastructure, and finance to identify ways in which collective intelligence could be used to bridge the gap and achieve an integrated approach to strategic planning.

Keywords: collective intelligence, health planning, integrated approach, healthcare modelling, health economics