In our latest interview series we spoke with Julie Evason, Managing Director at Health Diagnostics to find out more about the organisation, its achievements, some market challenges and its plans for the future.
Could you tell me a bit about yourself and your organisation?
Health Diagnostics was founded in 2003 with a focus on introducing innovative health screening products. Our core aim, which continues to this day, has been to create digital systems that inspire lifestyle change at scale by incorporating the latest technology and behavioural science.
Whilst our initial range of products addressed a variety of health conditions, over the years we have come to focus primarily on cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. Today, our digital systems are mainly deployed on Public Health England’s NHS Health Check Programme, as well as the Welsh national equivalent of this prevention initiative. In addition, we support a wide variety of community and workplace health check initiatives.
A key aspect of Health Diagnostics’ philosophy has always been to make personal health insights and support engaging, targeted and relevant. For us, these principles are vital to helping people become inspired and empowered to improve their health. Given that we support the NHS and public health teams, all of which are experiencing well-publicised strain, it is essential that we continually strive to add value, eliminate any admin burden and guarantee quality.
In addition to being closely aligned with the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan, our digital tools have been proven to help tackle the pervasive health inequalities that exist across Britain today. This has recently been shown in research published by colleagues at Imperial College London that I, along with others, co-authored.
Personally, I’ve been involved in creating health and wellbeing software solutions for health professionals since 1984 having started a previous business around health and fitness back when Jane Fonda was going for the burn! It has always been my goal to take the mystery out of both health and software, as I believe it should be clear and intuitive. Outside business I spend time with family and friends, so do a lot of entertaining, gardening and wind down by watching good comedy.
What is the most significant achievement for your organisation in the past 12 months and what will be over the next 12 months?
We have recently rolled out our systems and services across one of the UK’s largest local authority areas. This has involved supporting over 200 separate sites – most of which are GP surgeries and some of which are community providers – with our complete digital solution for managing and delivering a cutting-edge health check programme. Migrating this project smoothly away from a previous system presented a variety of logistical challenges. However, through smart working and collaboration, we are pleased to report that the project in question is now reaching its highest performance levels in 10 years.
Going forward, we are aiming to continue building on the success of this and other projects by engaging with colleagues from Imperial College London on an independent evaluation of our collaborative work. Supporting the establishment of evidence is absolutely vital if organisations are to thrive in this area. Whilst it does mean you have to put yourself out there (which obviously carries a risk), if the NHS is to be in possession of all the facts on what works for whom, it’s essential that companies like ours go the extra mile and engage with academia.
We’ve also been shortlisted for a number of awards and accolades in the past year. A proud moment was winning the award for the best research poster at Public Health England’s 2018 CVD Prevention Conference for a study we did into England’s postcode lottery and how lifestyle risk factors to CVD relate to deprivation status. We’re hoping to continue to receive recognition such as this as well as to further support the delivery of timely and targeted health checks for hundreds of thousands of people across the UK.
What problems and challenges are there to overcome?
Your June article on Tom Whicher from DrDoctor mentioned the FHIR compliance; this is also key for us. FHIR represents new international standards for interoperability and the transfer of health data. As with any new technology and standards, there’s always a learning curve. However, thanks to the creative and proactive approach that our teams take, we feel well equipped to manage the transition and ensure that those we work with are able to take advantage of the latest developments.
A particular challenge that we have also noticed is the extent to which public funding for health technology can be harder to come by for organisations that are established, even if those organisations retain innovative SME status. Speaking candidly, it can sometimes feel as though a great emphasis is placed on funding high-risk and unproven technologies, whilst those with an extensive track-record for delivering quality are over-looked. A dilemma facing us is that it has taken time to become established in our sector and generate a reputation as pioneering thought-leaders providing evidence-based tech. However, given our organisation is over 5 years old, we are aware of the possibility of being viewed as not ‘new’ enough to be eligible for certain funding streams that could help fast-track the spread and adoption of the systems. Effectively negotiating this landscape, whilst retaining our substance and core principles, presents an interesting ongoing consideration.
What do you think is the biggest technology challenge?
Maintaining the increasing levels of security that are required for secure data management in a way that remains cost effective can present a significant tech challenge. From a practical perspective, this can involve securing various accreditations, ensuring robust penetration testing protocols and establishing escrows amongst other considerations. We recognise the crucial importance of such compliance, particularly given that Health Diagnostics deal primarily with health data, however for many organisations new to the space, this can present an increasing barrier to market entry.
A further challenge is that of selecting and incorporating technologies which have flexibility and longevity. It’s not always the case that old stalwarts like Microsoft will keep products live; we saw exactly this with the discontinuation of their Health Vault platform. We therefore find that it’s very important to maintain clear judgement when selecting products to integrate in order to ensure the most effective use of our development resource.
What advice would you give to other organisations or professionals?
Stay focused. When there’s a constant flow of new products to the market, it can be easy to get distracted. Of course, it’s crucial to keep your finger on the pulse as an organisation and stay up-to-date, however it’s equally as important to have confidence in a well thought through plan that you can work to.
The principle of having confidence in your conviction is also important in another respect: not being afraid of standing up for what you believe is right. For us, this primarily involves keeping the views, experience and empowerment of patients at the forefront of our concerns. We find that acting in accordance with these principles has been essential in generating the levels of trust that our client organisations place in us.
Finally, ensuring that meaningful values are instilled at every level of your organisation means that your teams are that much more likely to enjoy what they do. We find that a happy and healthy team has been a cornerstone of achieving good outcomes for ourselves and our clients.
What is next in your space?
The direction of the new NHS Long Term Plan means that prevention is going to remain very high on the agenda. Indeed, effective prevention will be crucial if we’re to tackle this country’s huge burden of preventable disease. The good news however is that this can be done.
For instance, we supplied digital systems and support to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as they delivered health checks to local NHS staff. The effect of Sheffield’s staff wellbeing programme (which, in addition to health checks, included other interventions such as staff counselling and healthy weight support) was huge: following the programme’s implementation in April 2017, the Trust has seen a 10% decrease in sickness absence compared with the year before. In addition, they saw the fewest number of average working days lost compared with the previous 5 years. Given the national recognition the Trust received from the CQC for these outcomes, it’s likely that more foundation trusts will adopt similar policies.
We’ve always been keen to ‘put our money where our mouth is’ and evaluate the advantages and outcomes of our digital solution. To this end, we’ve already been involved with a number of independent studies and there are likely to be more of these to follow. People can therefore expect the emergence of an increasingly robust evidence base.
What are you working on at the moment?
Our development schedule is always exciting. Currently, we’re working on the introduction of AI technology to our systems. This is being done with a view to enhancing the patient experience by providing increasingly targeted health messaging through our platforms.
As our digital systems and services are modular, each element can stand alone or can be integrated into a complete end-to-end solution for managing/delivering health check programmes. Recently, we’ve begun work on making the individual elements relevant to new markets such as insurance, leisure and corporate.
Finally, we’re currently engaged in a process of streamlining and automating our operations wherever possible. This is allowing us to work in a smarter way, with increasingly agile structures. Ultimately, the saving of time and money through this kind of working means we can pass cost savings on to our clients.
