Accenture has announced its acquisition of Faculty, a UK-based company specialising in AI native services and products, with aims of expanding its AI offering for clients, in a move that will bring on board over 400 AI native professionals “including highly qualified data scientists and AI engineers”.
Faculty, with a history of working with public and private sector clients to deploy AI solutions, with services incorporating AI strategy, safety, design, build, implementation, and adoption, was responsible for building the NHS’s Early Warning System during COVID, to predict patient demand and allocate critical care resources in accordance with need. Its team will be integrated into Accenture’s existing teams, with CEO Marc Warner set to become Accenture’s chief technology officer.
Accenture will take on Faculty FrontierTM, described as “an enterprise decision intelligence product”, with the aim of helping to inform organisation’s decision making through access to connected data, AI models, and business products in a unified decision system. It also reportedly plans to build on Faculty’s Fellowship Program, focusing on early career training and placement for STEM graduates and post-doctoral researchers, by expanding it beyond its current UK market.
Marc Warner, Faculty CEO, said: “Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity. We have spent the last ten years supporting our clients to bring this world about, step by step. As AI advances rapidly, the ambition of our clients is now, rightly, no less than the reinvention of their business. I am delighted that by teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”
Wider trend: Health AI
Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s latest digital strategy and new AI framework have set out objectives, principles, and guidelines on the implementation of technology across the trust and the future use of AI. AI applications will be split into four domains: clinical support, operational automation, patient-facing technologies, and data analytics, according to CWP’s framework, with each assigned defined criteria for evaluation. Implementation will follow a phased approach beginning with pilot programmes in high impact areas, before being evaluated against baseline metrics and refined for wider rollout. Integration with existing systems such as the EPR will be of central importance, and training and support will be provided to promote staff confidence around the use of new tools.
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust has shared outcomes from AI pilots including ambient voice and AI training simulation for staff, along with future ambitions for digital and data, and planned collaborations with the Southern Ambulance Services Collaboration on shared infrastructure, cyber security, and more. A one-year pilot of Tortus AI ambient voice technology is underway across LAS’s clinical hub and ambulance operations, following a successful proof of concept trial funded by the Frontline Digitisation Fund. Another proof of concept is being conducted with Kaiwa’s AI training platform, an AI-powered conversational simulation tool to enhance emergency call taker training.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has issued a call for evidence on the regulation of AI in healthcare, asking members of the public, clinicians, industry, and healthcare providers to share their views on the modernisation of AI rules, keeping patients safe as AI evolves, and the distribution of responsibilities between regulators, companies, healthcare organisations, and individuals. In particular, views are sought on the UK’s current framework for regulating AI in healthcare and how it may need to be improved to “ensure fast access to safe and effective AI medical devices”, as well as on approaches to check safety once AI medical devices are in use, and how responsibility and liability are split between different parties involved in their deployment.
