What is IHDP?

Find out about our aims, vision and areas of impact.

Established in 2015 with funding from the Scottish Government, the Innovative Healthcare Delivery Programme (IHDP) aims to harness the value of healthcare data and digital health innovation to benefit patients, health care professionals and the NHS through collaboration with academia, industry and the third sector.

Our initial focus was on improving care and clinical outcomes for people living with cancer and rare diseases. Building on our success in these areas, we have extended our focus to include other policy areas and clinical specialties, working closely with colleagues in Public Health Scotland and policy teams across government. 


Our vision is to unlock the full value of health and care data to support better policy, improved services, and real benefits for people across Scotland.

By building meaningful connections across organisations and sectors, we help shape data-driven innovation that addresses real-world challenges in health and care. Our work focuses on three key areas of impact, aligned with national policy priorities, to ensure we deliver value where it matters most.

Based within the Centre for Medical Informatics at The University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, we bring together expertise in research, data, and service design. Our collaborative approach allows us to work across boundaries to identify barriers, co-design solutions, and support implementation at scale.

Using a collective impact model, we provide the coordination, facilitation, and communication that cross-sector projects often lack the time or capacity to deliver alone.

Our long-term goal is to create a sustainable programme that strengthens partnerships, supports funding opportunities, and enhances the quality and use of health and care data across Scotland’s digital health ecosystem.


Working with a wide range of stakeholders across health and care sectors, we have identified three key areas of impact for the programme:

  • transforming the use of data in health and care
  • creating insights in digital health innovation
  • involving patients in digital health.

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