Evaluation

When carrying out digital transformation process and introducing new technical solution(so carrying out digitalisation) it is important to understand the impact it has on the LTC facility and digital culture of LTC facility. For that data collection is crucial.


Furthermore, understanding of digital maturity of the LTC facility and digital literacy of the employees who will be included in the digital transformation process, before and after the implementation, can help you in developing and introducing appropriate training.

Finally, assessing and evaluating digital maturity before and after will give you a measure of progress and help you plan for the future, by developing or updating digital transformation strategy for your organisation.

While regular monitoring of the concrete digitalisation process will help you troubleshoot the issues and exploit the results to increase the motivation as soon as they emerge.


Assess and evaluate the digital literacy of the employees (including the management)


There are numerous instruments that have beendeveloped by national, regional, international and commercial agencies for assessing digital literacy or digital competence.

While assessing digital literacy in LTC facility you will probably use a tool that best fits your purpose, still we suggest you look beforehand if the tool you are planning to use is validated; UNESCO’s Global Framework of Reference on Digital Literacy Skills for Indicator 4.4.2 can serve as your reference point.
While doing an assessment we advise you to pay special attention to:

  1. Are there differences in the level of digital literacy among people in your organization? 
  2. Which areas, or dimensions of digital literacy should be improved in your opinion?
  3. How do you think the level of digital literacy of managers and other employees could be improved?
  4. Is there any training course for employees’ digital skills in your organization?
  5. Are employees encouraged to attend courses about digitalization?
  6. Are these courses appreciated by professionals?
  7. How does your organization keep informed about digital innovations (e.g., new digital solutions or new software, etc.)?

Assess the attitudes and standpoints of the employees towards technology and digitalization (including management)


There are different methodologies and tools available to access those attitudes, as with digital literacy try to use validated tools as much as possible.
While doing an assessment ask managers and other employees about their attitude towards digitalization and digital transformation. Ask them how they feel about specific solutions. Give them an opportunity to tell you in what way they think technical solutions can be implemented successfully. Where do they see barriers?

Assess the expectations


When planning an innovation majority of people have a certain idea, imagine how the innovation will look like and what changes it will bring. Those expectations can be realistic or not, but knowing, considering, and addressing them is part of a successful digital transformation process.
Here are some questions that can help with an understanding of expectations:

What are the expectations of the employees and management towards digitalization (or towards specific digital solutions you have in mind)? In your opinion, which are the key factors that must be considered for the digitalization process? You can ask people to rank them based on their relevance for an effective implementation. In your opinion, which are the most important activities and processes of digital transformation that create value for the user and the organization?

Assess digital maturity


The digital maturity assessment helps decision-makers, managers, and providers to understand their level of digital maturity by identifying key strengths and gaps in the provision of digital services.

When done prior to digital transformation, digital maturity assessment can help organizations by providing a framework to identify opportunities for improvement and further development. At the same, you can use it to measure progress done during the transformation.

There is more than one digital maturity assessment tool, but most of them are not specifically tailored to LTC. You are free to use any of them, but one of the furthest in development for LTC facilities is probably What Good Look Like Framework tool developed by NHS, UK. Put into practice in 2023, a tool baseline are 50 questions assessing digital maturity against 7 dimensions: Well led, Smart Foundations, Safe practice, Support people, Empower citizens, Improve care, Healthy populations. The framework draws on local learning to build on established good practices to provide clear guidance for health and care leaders to digitize, connect and transform services safely and securely as part of the Long-Term Plan’s strategic aims for digital transformation.
As part of DigiCare4CE project, we developed an assessment tool that can be used by LTC facilities to self-assess digital maturity:

In the perimeter of the D.1.3.1 “Toolbox for benchmarking” is possible to know the logical path that the Consortia has adopted to build a new tool, that is the LOTECADIM LO.ng TE.rm CA.re DI.gital Maturity self-assessment questionnaire. The questionnaire has been built through a collaborative multiple codesign process, among Project Partners, supported by a large Europe-wide on-line survey used to set up and validate it by a Factorial analysis. Starting from 112 items the tool is finally based on 48 items, 11 factors that represent the main dimension of self-assessment and LTC comparison on the Digital Maturity level.

This section is presented in the "LTC digitalisation assessment" section, which can be accessed from the Online Tool upper navigation bar.