As we head towards the end of HIC’s third year, we asked the team for their personal successes from across 2023 and what is on the horizon in 2024.
Getting GMSAs Digital-ready
In alignment with NHS England’s priorities for the Genomic Medicine Service Alliances (GMSAs) to embed genomics into routine care, we have acted as a central broker between Alliance partners and NHS stakeholders to get them digital-ready, unpicking their challenges and exploring their opportunities in line with regional and national priorities.
Charlotte John, COO, said:
“We have now supported six out of the seven GMSAs in England to understand the digital maturity landscape and their readiness to integrate a new genomic test ordering service. Next year, we will continue to support them to develop their high-volume diagnostic service for cancer, rare diseases and personalised medicine.
“Alongside this and our focus on underserved services, such as the health and justice sector, I will be ensuring HIC’s culture and compliance is in order. I particularly want to ensure our Net Zero commitments and social policies are in line with NHS vision so that we can best support adoption and spread from a people perspective.”
Discovery for Health and Justice
Prisoners tend to be of poorer health than the general population and have complex health care needs. We worked with Spectrum, one of the largest providers of prison healthcare services in the UK, to support them to move beyond paper-based processes. We embedded our Head of Digital Delivery, Andy Quinn, into the team to support with informatics, digital and project management, along with Business Analyst Sol Clarke, to lead on insights gathering in 19 prisons to understand the systems, processes, and interactions.
Andy Quinn, Head of Digital Delivery, said:
“Our discovery work was crucial for Spectrum to understand what was happening in each of their prisons and ultimately led us to developing a digital strategy and five-year plan using data and innovation to improve prison healthcare. Next year, we will be supporting the implementation of virtual wards in prisons to reduce security and resourcing issues and improve patient care. We are currently identifying the challenges around connectivity, devices, and communications. This will really push prison healthcare forward by enabling a new digital operating model.”
Showcasing Health Innovations
Events and missions are a great opportunity for us to show what we do and connect with others in the health innovation space. This year, we attended the ABHI delegations to both Tennessee and Texas where we formed relationships with companies such as data insights company, Kinsetsu, and Ear Nose and Throat company, Audalation, and others, which led to discovery and health economic evaluation projects amongst other exciting developments (more to follow in 2024!). We also spoke at Digital Health Rewired in collaboration with Xerox and at several Convenzis events on virtual wards and primary care transformation. The big event of the year was NHS ConfedExpo where we hosted a large exhibition space for HIC and six companies to showcase heath innovations and expertise to NHS stakeholders.
Sophie Green, Partnerships Manager, said:
“A big moment for me this year was our large presence at NHS ConfedExpo, one of the UK’s biggest healthcare events, where we hosted companies including Xerox, Cirdan, Tech in Care, Tortus.ai and Mizaic on our exhibition stand. It was great to see a concept become reality, and forming relationships with the different innovators that joined us, as well as meeting so many people at the event.
“I have since moved into a partnership role at HIC and I’m looking forward to building new relationships on a bigger scale, including at Arab Health in January. It’s so exciting to see the tech coming out of the sector especially in community care, such as virtual wards, and I can’t wait to get involved.”
NHS Digital Strategies
We have increasingly been working with trusts and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) to develop their digital strategies, including discovery work to understand the landscape they operate in. A key project has been working with Cambridge and Peterborough ICS, to develop their digital strategy and establish a digital group to oversee 200+ digital programmes.
Hadleigh Stollar, CEO, said:
“It is difficult to choose one success from 2023 but working with Cambridge and Peterborough ICS on their digital strategy, EPR discovery work, and more recently on a discharge discovery project, is one highlight. We worked with the digital team and the trusts on their patch – Royal Papworth, CUH, and NWAFT – to understand their challenges and needs and get them ready to implement an EPR across the region.
“Next year is set to be our biggest yet, with our EPR Summit for 150 NHS staff, opportunities from our partnership with Xerox, a large-scale digital discovery project in Northern Ireland, and new staff coming on board to drive these projects forward.”
Building successful partnerships
Healthcare Innovation Consortium by its very name is about bringing together blended teams to deliver health innovation projects. This year we partnered with a range of organisations, including Mecomed, Barts Life Sciences, Hill Dickinson, Piper Health and BLK Partners, to launch our AMR Innovation Programme.
Suzie Ali-Hassan, Chief Partnerships Officer, said:
“Our approach is to build a consortium of multi-sector expertise to enable change and drive innovation forward, which for our Antimicrobial Resistance programme, meant forming partnerships with clinical, commercial, and legal organisations to boost our offering.
“For 2024, I am looking at how we repurpose this model for other areas of need, particularly focusing on social care, where we already have great understanding, networks, and a role to play to progress innovation in this space.”
Opening the NHS to Global Solutions
Our ambition is to develop international initiatives that support the interoperability and innovation direction of HIC and wider NHS priorities. This year saw the launch of our International Accelerator that saw four companies from Europe, India and America – Alio, Ledidi, BeFC, and Aramis, take part in our tailored programme to help them enter the UK health market.
Olivia Clarke, Delivery Lead, said:
“It was my first year at HIC, co-leading the Accelerator aimed at international companies looking to understand and work with the NHS. A highlight was running a two-day bootcamp bringing together the NHS, industry and legal partners to help the companies develop value propositions, use cases, pitches, and provide networking opportunities.
“In 2024 we aim to secure the companies an NHS implementation and continue with our long-term partnerships. I will also be focusing on the UK as I start working with Digital Health and Care Northern Ireland on a discovery project. I will dive deep into the ecosystem and connect with key stakeholders to understand what the climate looks like for digital health and how to improve it, with the aim to develop a blueprint for a digital innovation hub. I am also completing my Agile project management certificate to further my PM skills.”
Scaling Primary Care innovations
HIC supports health innovators to enter the health sector and scale. One company we worked with this year is online healthcare provider, ZoomDoc. They offer an online medical certificate service, such as sickness, travel, and fit-to-fly letters, to provide faster access to healthcare and reduce pressure on the NHS. Having already proved themselves as a successful company in market, we worked with them to define their options for scaling.
Rob Hardisty, Solutions Director, said:
“ZoomDoc are an established solution that has saved the NHS over 10,000 hours so far; they have a good business model offering a service in a different way. We worked with them to outline their options for scaling, including potential partners such as PCNs, ICSs, and pharmacy, how to integrate with relevant systems, and how to go about NHS app integration.
“Next year, I look forward to working on new discovery and engagement projects and hopefully build on the discovery work with C&P ICS to help them make use of their shared care record.”
Next year the health and care sector will see a continued focus on cutting NHS waiting lists; supporting the workforce through training, retention and modernising the way staff work; and delivering recovery using data and technology.
Teams will be working hard to meet digital targets including all Trusts to have implemented an electronic health record by March 2025, virtual wards to be rolled out and scaled nationally, and 75% of patients to be registered on the NHS app. With a General Election likely in 2024, we could see significant changes politically, and the potential for more Industrial Action impacting on service delivery and staff morale.
HIC will continue to support both the NHS and suppliers to deliver their digital ambitions and increase care efficiencies, aligned with the NHS Long Term Plan, Primary Care Access Recovery Plan, and commitments around Net Zero. We stand ready to navigate the challenges and opportunities that 2024 present, with our core aspiration of improving care enabled through innovation and technology remaining at our forefront.
We wish you all a happy and health festive season and look forward to doing it all again in 2024!
If you would like to speak with the team about how we can help you with Healthcare Discovery, Implementation, and Success, get in touch at [email protected].