Last week, Alphalake Ai hosted two panel discussions on healthcare automation as its headquarters in King’s Cross, London.
The first panel which we covered last Friday offered an overview of how automation could improve efficiency across the healthcare system.
The second panel explored the topic in more depth, with a focus on the barriers to wider adoption.
These are our highlights.
Speakers
Olly Cogan, Founder and CEO, Alphalake Ai
Massimo Pezzini, Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise, Workato
Sarah Quarterman, Chief Executive at Basingstoke & Alton Cardiac Rehabilitation Charity (Cardiac Rehab)
Prof. Jason Laing, Founder, Promake Ltd
Masood Ahmed, Chief Digital Officer for the West Midlands Academic Science Network and CCIO of The Black Country & West Birmingham
James Norman, EMEA Health & Life Science Solutions DirectorCo founder and Chair – Tech4CV19Chair – All4Health&Care (Chair)
How can automation improve healthcare efficiency and collaboration between stakeholders?
Cardiac Rehab is a small charity, with a team of four experts leading its health programme.
For every 40 hours the team members work, just 12 are spent face-to-face – the rest is administration. Sarah argued that much of this work could be done more efficiently with automation.
Masood shared Sarah’s frustration and noted that the NHS often fails to leverage its stakeholder assets effectively.
He said:
Masood Ahmed
“We often talk about the patient experience. But actually, it goes beyond that. It’s looking at charities, local authorities, social care. They’re all stakeholders within that landscape, and they all need access to that information.
“The establishment of integrated care systems has given us the opportunity to collaborate.
“These are now shared problems. And therefore, we’re going to need to come up with shared solutions.”
‘Adapt or die’ was a common theme throughout the two panels. But this ever-evolving healthcare landscape is driving innovation for the benefit of millions of people.
Jason’s company ProMake was selected for Public Health England’s microbiology framework. The framework was created to speed up access to supplies and build threat resilience.
ProMake has developed a secure lab-on-a-chip system that connects to the user’s smartphone. Jason dubbed it a ‘PCR machine in the palm of your hand.’
Solutions like this, Jason said, are integral to the survival of the NHS.
Prof. Jason Lang
“We should try to make things that can save the NHS time, whether it be through eliminating two minutes of paperwork or eliminating logistics.”
Olly argued that rather than focusing on innovation, there are problems in the NHS that could be easily solved with existing solutions.
He highlighted the all-too-familiar challenge of trying to book a GP appointment.
“Why don’t we show GP appointments in advance and allow patients to book through something like Calendly?
“Some of this is just basic stuff. It’s just a case of looking at tools that already exist and trying to remove some of those entrenched positions in established frameworks.”
How does an organisation prioritise where to automate?
Masood said that it goes back to understanding organisational capacity and being very clear in the challenge that an organisation is trying to address.
He also noted that groups often try to solve problems from their own perspective. For example, clinicians might design the perfect clinical pathway without considering the other interconnected elements.
However, you need to look at it as an operating model. The infrastructure, the bottlenecks and the connectivity. Thinking collaboratively is key.
Massimo Pezzini
Olly asked Massimo to describe the composable enterprise model
Massimo explained:
“Rather than installing big pieces of software, the idea is to break this it into its elementary components.
“Users can then build and rearrange their business processes using these elementary building blocks.
“The idea is that, over time, the responsibility for application composition moves away from the IT department into the business side.
“Through this ‘fusion’, IT people and business people work together to deliver these new solutions.”
https://youtu.be/rVzZjNpMtig?t=6931
Are there any areas that should not be touched by automation?
Sarah said:
“We work with both people who’ve had heart attacks as well as primary prevention.
“Some of our clients will need to have an exercise test with an ECG machine and others will just need to see a specialist.
Sarah Quarterman
“Now, should that be automated? Can we trust the automation process? It’s not that I don’t want to do it. But can I trust it? How much of human physiology is rule-based?”
Olly cautioned that we should tread carefully and decide which rules-based elements could be easily automated to provide ‘quick wins’.
Where can automation augment human-led processes, and which processes can be purely rules-based?
Meanwhile, Jason highlighted the challenge of encouraging older generations to embrace automation.
He said:
“You’ve got the new generation coming in with an existing generation in play on the ground.
“Automation can assist but it’s going to require a manual element during the transition period.
“It comes down to education, because you can install the latest equipment at a hospital. But if the guys feel threatened or haven’t adapted, you’ll hit resistance.”
Masood said that automation could augment overstretched areas that feature some element of human interaction.
He used the example of mental health, which is hugely under resourced, with long waiting times.
“If you can’t see someone face-to-face, a chatbot that mimics human behaviour could be the next best thing, or at least it better than no contact at all.”
Returning to the question of automation and job security, Massimo offered the following observation:
“Some mundane tasks are going to be eliminated. But the computer can only give you an answer. It cannot ask the question.
“It is the humans who will continue to ask the questions and really understand the problem and the best way of solving it.”
Olly expanded on this point, noting that automation had been around since humans first chiseled a flint to make a spear.
Humans have always feared the spectre of technology. But all that happens every time is we elevate and adapt and our jobs change.
Jason added:
“We worked out that about 65% of children that are entering into high school now will go into jobs that have not been developed yet.
“So are we worried about being replaced? Yes, because if we don’t adapt and evolve with the systems in place, we’re going to get lost very quickly.”
To wrap things up, James asked: Where should an organisation start in adopting automation?
Sarah said:
“There are bits of automation that we can internally. But none of that is anywhere near as beneficial for us as reducing the admin burden and massively increasing the amount of time we can spend doing face-to-face work with patients.”
Masood said that organisations should look at it from two angles: What would they like to do, and what can they realistically do with the limitations that they have.
From there, the organisation can decide where automation would have the greatest impact.
Olly argued that understanding user need was essential to the adoption of any new technology.
He stated that the best technology is intuitive, with solutions such as UserVoice enabling organisations to gather user feedback and shape software development.
Olly Cogan
He said:
“One the biggest problems in healthcare at the moment is the upgrade culture. It’s a huge investment, you’re locked into it and there’s very little iteration and user voice feedback.
“The reason Google’s amazing is that iterative culture of software development, where you’re constantly releasing new versions. It just doesn’t stop. It just carries on throughout the whole lifetime of the software.”
James agreed:
“It’s a living thing. If you stop and allow it to get stale, it won’t work for your users. You’ve got to bring the end users and customers in.”
