Health Education England (HEE) has commissioned a new artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap and interactive dashboard from the company Unity Insights, which provides bespoke analytics and evaluation services to the NHS.
As well as ‘exploring the use and impact of AI in the NHS’, the report ‘examines the effects on workforce groups, clinical pathways, point of care, and their respective transitioning requirements’. It also considers spread and adoption, and the potential impact on workforce.
The report includes case studies of two AI technologies and aims to ‘help steer ongoing AI discussions across the system’ and look at training and workforce needs.
Expanding ‘on the legacy of the Topol review’, the report features significant cross-organisation collaboration. The project ran between March and October 2021, with stakeholders ranging from Health Education England, NICE, and the NHS AI Lab, to the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC).
The dashboard from the project – the HEE AI Roadmap Dashboard – is available to view online and features four sections: a distribution page, which ‘displays the taxonomy used with the distribution of each technology type and subtype in the database’, use case profiles, a heat map displaying the spread of AI technologies, and an AI overview that allows the user to view by clinical area, workforce groups, or point of care and time to deployment.
From the use case profiles, last updated in December, for remote monitoring – ‘Medic, General Practice’ is first in the top five workforce groups affected at 28 per cent, with district nurses next at 19 per cent. Respiratory and General Practice, at 34 per cent and 31 per cent respectively, are the top two clinical areas the AI remote technology is intended for, and 72 per cent of the technology is intended for individual or self-care. Around 53 per cent of the technologies of this type take three years to be ready for deployment at scale, with the East of England the region where remote monitoring technologies are most commonly used.
An interactive map, meanwhile, provides data on the spread of AI technologies and plots them across England at known NHS sites – with the option to view all or to select from types and sub-types including remote monitoring, diagnostic, and population health. Currently, the number of technologies stands at 240 with 163 implemented at an NHS site, and 143 known NHS sites where a technology has been implemented.
The ‘AI Roadmap Methodology and findings report‘, published in January 2022, meanwhile, details the context of Unity Insights’ commission, key findings, limitations and recommendations, the methodology and structure of the dashboard, the creation and population of the database, case studies, and more.
In it’s executive summary, the authors of the publication state that ‘the AI Roadmap work is one of two contributions exploring the use and impact of AI in the NHS’ and that the report ‘covers the work conducted as well as how stakeholder engagement was used to shape the approach and amend the deliverables’.
The document’s key findings include that 56 – or 23 per cent – of technologies will be ready for deployment within one year. The ‘AI Roadmap highlights how relevant and timely training the NHS workforce for the use of AI technologies is’ and ‘shows the need to have a holistic and cross-organisational strategy to adapt the education provided on usage of AI in the NHS’. As well, it highlights the need to ‘monitor the spread of AI to ensure a fair access to innovative products across regions, points of care and types of sites’.
Other learnings mentioned include: in the distribution of AI technologies, out of the 240 technologies included in the database, ‘Diagnostic’ was the most represented type at 34 per cent; ‘Multiple clinical areas’ was selected for 23 per cent of technologies, with the most selected option after that ‘Clinical Radiology’ (11 per cent).
To read the report in full, click here.
