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 strategically support the use of data and innovation to drive improvement in health outcomes by applying design thinking to address public service challenges within Scotland's health and care 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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