In the second part of our feature, sponsored by Highland Marketing, we hear from a wider group of health tech providers on their thoughts whether healthcare has had its online banking moment, we hear their considerations and what must be done to continue the momentum.
You can read part one of the feature here.
Starting part 2 of our feature, Vijay Magon, CEO at CCube Solutions, describes the inspirational pace of change in the NHS during Covid as well as the impact Covid has had.
“We’ve been both inspired by the mobilisation of the NHS response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as shocked by the impact it may have on the National Health Service which we all cherish and work to support in the ways that we do.
“The pace of change in the NHS is breathless – change driven by the need to beat the pandemic and not be beaten by it. The dedication of front-line staff along with decision makers behind the scenes have collaborated as never seen before to deal with the crisis, to take on new technical challenges and maximise the role technology is playing.
“Under such un-precedented measures, we are collaborating with our partners, looking at how we can support the NHS and help to reduce face-to-face contact to protect patients and staff, minimise the risk of Covid-19 infection.
“Covid-19 is certainly triggering a number of calls on interoperability and data sharing between systems and health care providers, switch to digital records to minimise transmission of infection and support virtual clinics, and any help to improve patient communication & engagement now and for restoration plans to switch to a new normality.”
Alan Lowe, Chief Executive, Visionable, highlights the need to start planning for transformational digital pathways for the future:
“There is no doubt that the health service has moved fast to support remote working, digital clinics, and virtual consultations during the coronavirus outbreak, and what that has done is prove that these things can be done. It’s no longer possible for people to say that multi-disciplinary team meetings cannot be organised by video, or that clinicians cannot work with patients by video, because they are doing it right now.
“However, I don’t think that means the NHS has had its “online banking moment” and that’s because we are in a false environment at the moment. We are in an infection control environment, and in an infection control environment people have to use digital, because that’s the only way they can do the work they have to do.
“That doesn’t mean they will automatically continue to work digitally when the world returns to something like business as usual. So, to maintain progress – to get to something like an online banking moment – I think we need to start planning now for the transformational digital pathways that we want to see in the future.
“I think we need a collaboration of technology partners to work with NHS organisations, and their clinicians, and patients, to do that, and I think the work needs to be oriented to outcomes, so we see a blended approach in which traditional and digital services are aligned to deliver the most efficient, most effective outcomes possible.
“There is no doubt we will also need investment. A recent National Audit Office report noted that we cannot do what needs to be done on current levels of funding. However, I think that now is the time to make the case. The coronavirus crisis means the NHS has never been as appreciated as it is now, so we need to harness that good will and push for change while we can.”
Andy Wilcox, Senior Product Manager, International, at Imprivata talks about the exponential increase in demand for the adoption of digital technologies and the potential negative effects this demand could have.
“We’ve seen a huge demand for remote access, identity and access management provisioning and telehealth solutions.
“In the space of a matter of weeks, the way healthcare is delivered has undergone dramatic changes to cope with the increased demands as a result of the global pandemic, COVID-19.
“Whether it be the building of new temporary hospitals, the shift to remote working and telehealth or the onboarding of many new staff to support the increasing demands, hospital IT departments are under immense pressure to support their colleagues and clinicians on the front-line.
“This crisis has been the catalyst for digital transformation at scale. It’s hard to envisage just how much an unprecedented, unanticipated COVID-19 crisis, would accelerate the adoption of digital technologies.
“We’ve seen some healthcare organisations advancing by the equivalent of four years in only a few weeks, Covid-19 marks a tipping point in healthcare digital transformation. The challenge now is ensuring that these digital innovations are here to stay.”
“COVID-19 is pushing the boundaries of healthcare IT in every way. Although it’s inspiring, it’s also very concerning. That’s because “pushing the boundaries” means stressing these systems and new solutions beyond the capacity and scale they were designed to safely handle.
“Stressing the system like this also stretches security, safety, and privacy limits to the brink.
“Unfortunately, this opens doors of vulnerability to cyber criminals, identity thieves, and phishing attack scammers.”
Liam King, Director of Commercial and Customer Experience at Healthcare Gateway on the learnings that must be acquired during Covid and the new norm we are entering into.
“The leadership team at Healthcare Gateway believe it’s important we learn from this experience, and look to review and retain the ‘can do’ and ‘let’s get it done’ attitude found during this period and strive to transfer them to our work within all areas of our business.
“The morning commute from bed to bathroom to the home office via the kitchen has been a very positive experience.
“We have been delighted that our teams have embraced working from home, and we feel meetings are taking place more efficiently meaning an increase in productivity. This is a shared effort, a shared challenge that affects us all.
“The new norm, is fast developing; as a business leader we continue to plan for ways to support our staff in the transition to new norm, our objective is to create a streamlined approach to future working patterns in the same way we managed to transition to completely remote working.
“As the NHS has faced its greatest challenge in its history, it’s been refreshing to be a part of ‘togetherness’ approach in supporting the NHS in responding to COVID-19 to save patient lives.
“A final thank you to all front line and key workers from all industries but in particular Health, Care, Emergency Services and Education – I am proud to play such a small part in the huge effort.”
Peter Oliver, Director at Cloud21 on differentiating between short-term and long-term technologies during Covid.
“There’s no question that we have seen a significant acceleration in digital adoption across Health and Care; and particularly within the NHS.
“Some technologies have proven themselves to be transformative incredibly quickly and will be here to stay; some have provided tactical solutions, and will require further consideration for them to remain for the long term – and some just won’t have been effective, and will need to be decommissioned, safely.
“However, aside from us being forced in to a position of requiring these tools with immediacy, one change that has enabled this rapid adoption has been a relaxation in approaches to procurement.
“We absolutely need to make sure that public money is invested wisely, both in terms of delivering value for money and benefits; but there could be an opportunity for procurement reform.
“The challenge ahead of us is to ensure we have the mechanism to deliver rapid evaluation, sourcing and contracting of new technology, and related services.”
Valerie Phillips, healthcare technology expert at PA Consulting, on cross-industry collaboration, mirroring Vijay Magon’s comments at the beginning of the article.
“A particularly gratifying outcome has been greater cross industry collaborations. The development of ventilators for the NHS has involved collaboration between organisations with expertise across electronics, software development, human factors, design, and thermodynamics as well as health.
Comments by Dr Anne Blackwood, Chief Executive Officer, Health Enterprise East (HEE) on the breaking down of barriers during Covid.
“What’s been really encouraging to see is the rapid erosion of long-standing cultural and financial barriers to tech adoption which I hope points to a new way of working in the future. Faced with a crisis of the scale posed by Covid-19, in the end ramping up the use of evidence-based health tech in the NHS was a no-brainer.
“A collaborative model lies at the heart of efficient technology adoption. By working alongside clinicians, industry innovators can better understand their specific requirements and can develop innovations more closely tailored to their needs.”
The re-evaluation of agility from an operational standpoint as discussed by Terry Walby, CEO and Founder at Blue Prism Cloud.
“This global crisis has pushed us all to re-evaluate what operational agility entails and how critical it is to be responsive to change – on a scale like never before.
“Through our COVID-19 Response Program, our SaaS-based intelligent automation platform that runs AI-powered digital workers is enabling a fast-growing number of NHS Trusts to swiftly adapt to unprecedented operational demand.
“The injection of digital workers into the NHS resource pool allows a wide range of activities to be automated at speed across multiple functions – to release more time to care for frontline NHS staff.”
Dr Owain Rhys Hughes, Founder, Cinapsis who have rolled out digital triage technology said:
“Since the outbreak of COVID-19 we’ve played a key role in enabling GPs and emergency healthcare workers to quickly identify the best course of action for any patient, in collaboration with specialists via digital triage technology that provides advice and guidance.
“Vital decisions around hospitalisation have had to be made quickly and accurately, and thanks to huge buy-in from the NHS for tech-led solutions, we’ve made huge stride forwards in terms of putting consultants in the hands of GPs quickly.”
Dr Alexander Young, Founder, Virti:
“The pandemic meant that lots of new clinicians were being onboarded, key personnel were changing roles, and new medical environments were being created. At the same time, very limited face-to-face training could be carried out.
“We upskilled clinicians fast and remotely, and this was made possible as barriers were removed that enabled tech solutions to be rolled out quickly through the NHS.”
“Not every tech solution to have come out of the pandemic will stick, but those that do will completely transform how medics learn, train and work every day.
“It’s going to be a huge help to NHS staff who have been working so hard to pull this country through the crisis.”
Dr Anas Nader, CEO, Patchwork Health, comments on filling shifts that have been vacated due to Covid-19.
“We’ve been able to collaborate even more closely with NHS partners to add and then roll-out new features and functionality to our existing tech-enabled staffing platform rapidly – a process which might have ordinarily taken months.
“At the peak of the crisis, hospital managers were using our platform to advertise and fill thousands of COVID-19 shift vacancies every week, and we saw a surge in the number of doctors booking shifts via our dedicated app.
“It showed how critical responsive, intelligent staffing solutions are during a period of heightened need. And it’s provided us with a huge amount of learning with regards to how we can take forward this progress and embed it long-term.
“We’re delighted to see how such solutions have been embraced; ones which benefit both the grassroots and the NHS as an organisation.”
