As 2025 draws to a close, we’re reflecting on some of the health tech supplier feature articles we have shared, covering topics from building confidence with AI telephony tools in primary care to cyber security.
Building confidence in AI telephony tools for primary care
By Max Gattlin, Commercial Director, X-on Health
Patient empowerment means putting AI in their hands and allowing them to self-serve for non-urgent needs, allowing clinicians to focus on more complex patient needs and preventative care. If we can remove the demand before it flows into the practice then it eases the burden immediately.
For clinicians and practice staff, it needs to be clear that AI is an opportunity to reduce the pressure, not a threat to remove jobs. Clinicians are more likely to trust tools that they understand how to use, so time dedicated to training can demystify the AI’s capabilities and limitations. The tech may be amazing but it needs the support around it to build in training for staff in order to make best use of systems already in place and integrate additional tools such as Surgery Assist.
Take for example Tudor Lodge, a practice in South-West London that is an early adopter of AI tools. They implemented Surgery Assist, a digital assistant, as part of a wider Access Optimisation Service and the practice has experienced 54% fewer calls in the 8am rush as a direct result. Applied nationally it is estimated that this service could result in 9.1 million fewer calls received per month by GP surgeries.
Read the feature in full here.
Award-winning case study: Revolutionising skin cancer referral pathways
By Isla Health
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust won the 2024/25 HTN Health Tech Award for Health Tech Case Study of the Year for its collaboration with Isla Health. This partnership has transformed dermatology services by introducing remote care solutions for Community Lesion Imaging Clinics (CLICs), significantly improving patient access and operational efficiency.
By implementing Isla’s digital platform, RCHT replaced outdated referral processes with a faster, more accessible system, particularly benefiting rural and geographically isolated communities. The impact:
- 49% reduction in face-to-face appointments, freeing up clinician time for urgent cases
- Two-Week Wait (2WW) referral triage time reduced from 57 days to just 12 days
- AI-ready database with 3,000+ high-quality dermoscopic images, supporting future diagnostic advancements
The introduction of remote CLICs has streamlined workflows, reduced administrative burden, and enhanced clinical productivity. Patients no longer need to travel long distances for initial assessments, leading to improved access to care and shorter waiting times.
Read the feature in full here.
How to create capacity to help get through the backlog – today
By Aimee Wilde, Partnerships Lead, Accurx
- Virtual clinics
A great example of this approach is at one acute trust’s virtual fracture clinic. Previously, all A&E patients were immediately booked into trauma & orthopaedics for a follow-up appointment, which often only served to direct them to other appointments like physiotherapy or cast adjustments. By implementing a virtual fracture clinic, patient cases are now triaged remotely by specialists without the patient being present. This enables efficient decision-making, reducing the time needed for decisions by half compared to in-person appointments. As a result, the orthopaedics team can now care for an additional 300 patients per month. - Long-term condition management
For patients with stable, long-term conditions, such as those on DMARDs for rheumatoid arthritis, frequent follow-up appointments may not always be required. An audit by the rheumatology service at North Bristol NHS Trustfound that in 80% of face-to-face appointments, no change was made to the patient’s medication or treatment plan. Cancelling or instead sending the information communicated in these appointments digitally, e.g. through SMS messages, would save significant time for both patients and clinicians. - Post-procedure follow-up
Post-procedure follow-up appointments can also often be replaced with digital communication, through patients providing key information by answering questions in a digital form about their status and recovery. At one acute trust, 49% of spinal injection follow-up appointments were replaced with a simple questionnaire sent out eight weeks post-injection, asking whether the treatment was successful in reducing patient’s pain and whether they still require a follow-up appointment. Patients who didn’t need their appointment are either moved to a PIFU pathway or discharged, freeing up significant amounts of staff time.
Read the feature in full here.
Building an NHS fit for the future: how can the health service protect itself from cyber threats?
By Mark Harris, IT Manager at Radar Healthcare
Cyber security in healthcare starts with a solid foundation. That means having a well-defined risk framework, supported by effective tools and systems. At Radar Healthcare, our quality and compliance management system is a central hub for incident reporting and risk tracking, helping organisations stay compliant and respond quickly.
A key component of a successful cyber strategy is a clear cyber response plan. Knowing what to do when something goes wrong – who to contact, what actions to take, how to contain the threat – can make all the difference in limiting the impact of an incident. This plan must be practical, accessible, and rehearsed.
It’s this human vulnerability that often creates the entry point for attackers, which is why a strong focus on staff training is so important and plays a huge role in prevention. Phishing simulations, for example, are one of the most effective ways to build awareness. By mimicking real-world scams and offering feedback and educational content, these simulations help staff develop the instincts to spot suspicious activity. When paired with regular communication, video training, and real-world examples, training becomes part of the organisational culture.
Read the feature in full here.
Harris Health Alliance on how digital can help tackle interoperability
Interview with Rob Whitney, sales and account manager, and Katie Sutcliffe, head of marketing, Harris Health Alliance (HHA)
It would be great to have NHS-defined standards for communication, Rob told us. “In other areas there are ISN standards, and whilst these have been developed in maternity, which is a great foundation to start with, it isn’t yet mature enough to facilitate the necessary interoperability. Improving that would then open up those integrations and interoperability across specialties, not just within maternity, and it would make suppliers’ lives easier not having to develop a custom interface every single time.”
HL7 is a “very old standard”, but it’s so widely used that people are reluctant to move away from it, according to Rob. “So you have this issue that people are comfortable using it, but whilst it’s not causing any issues for the organisation, it’s not forward-thinking.” APIs would be the ideal way to publish and share information between systems, reducing costs for all parties, but without the necessary data standards, there’s no point in publishing them, “because every supplier has their own data schema and standard that they’re publishing”, he added.
K2 is keen to get a seat at the table when it comes to discussions on the Singe Patient Record, which is officially starting in maternity, Rob told us, in order to be sure that it can work to incorporate it into its products and roadmap to offer benefits to customers. “It’s also important for us to be able to share our expertise and experience with the NHS in an objective way that can help in the drive toward NHS England’s objectives,” he noted.
Read the feature in full here.
X-on Health on the value of data for meaningful transformation in primary care
Interview with Sharon Hanley, director of digital primary care at X-on Health, and Derrick Measham, research and development manager at X-on Health
Using the Surgery Assist dashboard, Derrick showed some of the key metrics that can be tracked through Surgery Insights, including call waiting times and access optimisation for practices, which is “published for the whole world to see”. Derrick highlighted the importance of this data from X-on Health’s point of view, stating, “not many areas are looking at this data in that much detail, which is why we were keen to put it all in one place and generate insights to assist our customers and make changes”.
Read the feature in full here.
Rackspace Technology – Is your EPR system as efficient as it could be?
Interview with Matt Moore, Director of Health and Public Sector at Rackspace Technology
For trusts with an approved business case and an approved budget, “we’d recommend not just automatically agreeing to do everything with that EPR provider”, Matt said. “If you look globally to countries like the US, lots of organisations do not host directly with their provider, they host separately, and that means that the data can be easily accessed by other applications, and they can do integrations simply.” Working with a third party that can “host everything” brings the data much closer together, according to Matt, “and you also don’t need to worry about data egress fees. Nearly all of the trusts we talk to aren’t aware that’s an option; they get given the bill for the tech and a quote for the hosting, and if you don’t ask, you’re not told there’s an option to host anywhere else.”
Rackspace Technology can help by bringing in EPR specialists and sovereign cloud specialist capability to deliver the platform, Matt continued. “We’ve already invested in all the necessary infrastructure, from the technology underpinning the application stack to the specific cloud-based solutions that our customers require. So, you don’t have to start from scratch, looking to try and understand cloud in the first place and then trying to design something yourself. We can help you carve out what you need from it and help you deliver it swiftly, and this also means you will only be paying for what you are actually using.” Globally Rackspace is the largest 3rd party hosting provider for Epic.
Read the feature in full here.
Nervecentre on breaking down barriers, a vision for seamless NHS care
By Nervecentre
The NHS has long been held back by outdated systems that restrict the flow of information. We all know the story. A patient moves from their GP to a specialist, or from hospital to the community, and at every step, their data has to be transferred manually, or worse, re-entered from scratch. It’s inefficient, it’s costly, and it leads to avoidable delays in care.
The solution is clear: a cloud-based, scalable system where every part of the NHS – hospitals, GP practices, mental health services, and community care – operates as one interconnected network, with the patient at the centre. That’s precisely what we’re building at Nervecentre.
It all comes down to architecture. Unlike many legacy systems, our platform is designed to be cloud-scalable. That means every trust using Nervecentre operates on the same software, creating a truly unified ecosystem where information flows seamlessly. No clunky integrations, no costly customisations – just real-time access to the data that matters.
Imagine a world where services can be transferred, centralised or distributed across regions, supported by a single digital platform. That’s the future we’re creating.
Read the feature in full here.
InterSystems on EPRs and the future direction of EPRs
By Gary Mooney, InterSystems
To realise the full strategic value of EPR solutions, healthcare providers must shift from a transactional to a relational care model, leveraging AI-enhanced enterprise platforms to facilitate interdisciplinary and integrated care models. Ensuring positive user adoption, aligning technological deployment with clinical workflow needs, and sustained post-implementation investment will be essential for future success. Key takeaways:
- While EPRs have delivered significant benefits, they are not yet realising their full potential due to persistent challenges and a focus on transactional processes
- The future of EPRs is heavily influenced by technological advancements, particularly AI and ML, which offer the potential for truly transformative capabilities
- The “Unified Enterprise Platform” model, with its ability to consolidate data, is better positioned to leverage the power of AI/ML
- A strategic shift towards a relational, person-centric model of care, enabled by AI-enhanced EPRs and supported by robust data platforms, is essential to address the growing demands on healthcare systems
- Prioritising and actively managing positive user adoption by frontline staff is crucial for the successful implementation and sustained value of EPR solutions.
Read the feature in full here.
Empowering nurses through digital
By Aimee Wilde, Partnerships Lead, Accurx
Nursing teams in many acute specialities run service helplines, which are often the only way for patients to connect with secondary care teams. The patient demand for support via these helplines can easily become overwhelming for nursing teams that are usually already understaffed. Having to deal with such a high volume of patient requests via this medium can delay nurses from visiting in-patients and attending important MDT meetings. In attempts to mitigate this, many service helplines are only open for a set time during the morning and do not have a voicemail capability. Whilst this might help nursing teams better manage their capacity, it creates a very frustrating experience for patients – who may spend many hours on the phone trying to connect with a nursing team to no avail.
Digital patient triage offers an alternative to this. This is where patients are sent a web link to a simple, digital form where they can submit requests for support. Admin & nursing teams can review, triage and respond to requests from a single inbox, enabling patient requests to be resolved and actioned without a phone call; saving nurses significant time. This has been the case for the IBD nursing team at UHL, who introduced the use of digital patient triage in 2024. They’ve seen over a 60% increase in patient interactions that they’re able to support year on year (compared to previously only having the helpline available). They’ve also been able to help resolve 170 flare ups per month, representing an 80% increase in flares treated and also A&E admissions avoided.
Read the feature in full here.
