Readiness and digital maturity: promoting innovation, integration, and scale in Scotland

Digital maturity and readiness are well-known concepts; however in reviewing the research early breakthrough digital health innovations (DHI) can be challenging to capture and assess as part of the common maturity and assessment models utilized. Even though there are many digital maturity models available today (Schallmo, D.R.A., Tidd, J. (eds) Digitalization. Management for Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69380-0_5), he challenge is mainly due to innovation projects’ immaturity and usual lack of fidelity, integration, and inconclusive service pathway design at that point, along with most organizations marked at being at “early or intermediate stages of digital maturity” (Ladu L, Koch C, Ashari PA, Technol Soc 77: 102564, 2024), and a recent publication stated that “frontier and emerging technology” was not fully aligned with many of the maturity models used (Zhao, Schalet, Alsalamah, Stud Health Technol Inform 305:257–260, 2023).

The Oxford Dictionary defines innovation as “the process through which new products, concepts, services, methods, or techniques are developed” (Oxford definitions—www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100004376) or as Joseph Schumpeter argues ensuring the system is made ready for “supporting the process of creative destruction” (Hospers 2005 Vol18 page 35—https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12130-005-1003-1.pdf). Through this innovation lens, it is therefore important to examine how, and if, we can assess new emerging innovations through standard digital maturity models (DMMs), and whether DMA digital maturity assessment (DMA) tools can fully accommodate new and upcoming DHIs that are not yet fully conceived, connected, or stable within mature hospital and healthcare systems.

This chapter discusses how organizations are assessing their digital maturity, taking into consideration a drive for more integrated care ambitions (UK Gov—https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-plan-for-digital-health-and-social-care/a-plan-for-digital-health-and-social-care) and the use of disruptive technologies and innovations to help solve the major challenges. Case studies are used within this chapter to illustrate how a heuristic innovation readiness framework is used to demonstrate that the innovation project is increasing in readiness level terms, and how innovations accumulate evidence through each stage with the ambition to be ultimately handed over for service and technical integration (linking to more mature and anchored systems within hospitals and other associated systems), what we would commonly regard as moving out the research and development (R&D) stage into business as usual (BAU).