In our latest interview we spoke with Dr Nick Harvey, CEO of Digitalis, NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur and RCGP Entrepreneur.
Dr Harvey has been a principle GP 7 years and a trainer for 5 years and is the co-founder of Digitalis, a platform that helps busy healthcare professionals meet their obligations to professional development while helping organisations maintain the high standard of their members.
The platform has surpassed 4,000 users and aims to become the largest interprofessional healthcare community in the UK. Dr Harvey said “We have developed a cloud-based platform with smartphone apps that allow any healthcare professional to connect with colleagues and share questions and learning. It also helps healthcare professionals keep up to date and allows them to collate evidence for appraisals.”
What is your background and experience?
I have an interest in bringing efficiencies to the way we work which has led me to lead some really successful changes in our practice such as workflow training for administrative staff and the recruitment of paramedic practitioners and pharmacists. I am a founding member and Chair of our GP Federation, representing all 180,000 patients in out CCG footprint and we have just secured the Extended Access Service contract and are introducing pharmacists to all of our practices. In 2014 I co-founded Digitalis Technology with the aim of developing technology solutions that bring efficiencies and enhance quality to the way we work and have been working on a clinical community project.
What is unique about your organisation?
We are the only organisation that looks to deal with all facets of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). There is often focus on learning material or documenting learning, but the identification of important knowledge gaps is often ignored as are the mechanisms to effectively disseminate learning amongst clinical communities. Digitalis aims to marry all aspects of CPD.
What projects are you working on at the moment?
We are currently finalising a WebApp for beta release at http://DigitalisCPD.com and are working hard to nurture the international community of healthcare professionals who work with the charity Health Poverty Action.
What problems and challenges are there to overcome?
We are in the process of overcoming the challenge of fundraising which will help us tackle a few of the other challenges: marketing, recruitment and further refinement of our platform.
For Digitalis, what is the biggest technology challenge?
We have done a lot of work on developing applications for iOS and Android. One of the hardest things has been having to cater for so many types of Android device, including the legacy versions often encountered in developing countries. Our work with Health Poverty Action made this imperative.
Where next?
It’s an exciting time. I have just been accepted on the Royal College of GPs Innovator Mentorship Programme; we are in a funding round and just about to release the WebApp.
