Walsall Together in partnerhip with the Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB) and VUIT, has been recognised at this year’s HSJ Digital Awards.

The HSJ Digital Awards, which took place on Thursday 6 June, aims to celebrate the power of digital products, projects and services to transform care delivery, enhance efficiency and improve patient outcomes.

The Black Country ICB, Walsall Together and VUIT, have been awarded the Generating Impact in Population Health through Digital Award for the development of a Black Country Population Outcomes Framework.

The Black Country Population Outcomes Framework has been developed, alongside a digital monitoring tool, to help support partnership decision making and to measure the impact of transformation initiatives in delivering population health and wellbeing outcomes.

This means that partnerships across the Black Country now have a comparable way of assessing outcome-based initiatives and measuring their expected impact on priority outcomes, leading the way for outcome-based commissioning in the future. Walsall’s deployment of the tool has led to partnership initiatives being targeted to population wellbeing outcomes, with progress being measured consistently by all partners to drive transformation.

The Population Outcomes Framework was also shortlisted for the Reducing Health Inequalities through Digital Award and was highly commended in this category.

Michelle McManus, Director of Place Development and Transformation for Walsall Together, said: “We are delighted to have been recognised in these awards. The outcomes framework was co-produced with VUIT, alongside our statutory and voluntary and community organisations, and the citizens of Walsall.

“Through this approach, we can really improve the ways in which citizens can take control of their own lives, as well as having a more targeted approach to support the most vulnerable people who experience the poorest outcomes.

“I’m so proud of this achievement and the work that has been done since to support the wider system to develop the framework even further with a view to rolling this out across other places soon.”

Mark Axcell, Chief Executive Officer for the NHS Black Country ICB, said: “We’re extremely proud that the ICB, in partnership with Walsall Together and VUIT, have been recognised at this year’s HSJ Digital Awards.

“This not only demonstrates the importance of partnership working but also the significant benefit that digital innovation is bringing to both patients and teams across the Black Country.

“A huge congratulations to all those involved.”