I just read...Is the healthcare industry catching up with digital innovation?

This is an article by Jack Simpson @ Econsultancy about the progress in the digital world the heathcare industry is making. As many others would agree, including all those mentioned in this article, the heatlhcare sector is way behind. We have ambition and desire, but our efforts are still very weak. Especially in the NHS, there is a lot of talk, but our efforts are not coordinated, lack enough skilled professionals (from a variety of backgrounds, not just clinical or computer science), and certainly lacks enough funding.

But it is very encouraging to know that so many others are excited about the digital future of healthcare. I'm yet again inspired and have received affirmation that a leap in to IT was certainly the right choice for me.

Happy reading.

HEALTHTech 2015

I attended an amazing evening with some truly inspirational and passionate innovators who together are making Healthcare of the future today.

A collaboration of KPMGs High Growth Technology Group and the healthcare tech innovators Meetup.com group Health 2.0 London, HEALTHTech 2015 was a great opportunity to learn more about numerous successful start-ups as well some of the investors who will fund the tomorrow’s world of digital Healthcare.

The evening began with some networking where one of the interns in my team, Hira, and I spoke with some very interesting people. One such individual is Matt Hartley of Healthforgewhich is a “cloud platform for healthcare app developers”. Matt explained how his start up is trying to help healthcare innovators build their apps without the stress of figuring out how to ensure their solution works in a modern, interoperable healthcare ecosystem. This then means that the app development team can focus more on the UX and core business they are developing. Definitely a business to keep an eye on.

Our first speaker was Robbie Hughes, founder and CEO of Qinec which is a digital health company using real time data to personalise the patient journey for optimal healthcare outcomes. He’s been busy since 2005 and his company is gone from strength to strength. However, he did explain some of the challenges and indeed mistakes he has faced over the years. I can’t lie, his presentation was pitched so perfectly and he handed the audience some real gems.

A great point he made was the fact that so often clinical staff want something new, but for it to be exactly the same as the old. Which is ridiculous, but sadly very true, especially for disenchanted clinicians.

Robbie also discussed some of the really under-appreciated problem with pilot studies; they don’t just take up a lot of time to do them, but it often keeps your best staff members busy too. If a product is really good, often you will know so because of research done before and during development, meaning the product can just be released. It’s also free to the business having a pilot done, but stops you from earning money, which is not useful for a start up with little income or reserves.

We were also reminded that Customer Acquisition Cost which is a measure of how much needs to be spent to gain a new customer, is not just measured in money but in time as well. So seniors and executives can often push for work to be low cost and fast, but this isn’t always the best option.

All in all, it was really great start to the evening.

Next was Dr Nasrin Hafezpaast from Outcomes Based Healthcare (OBH).  As co-founder and CTO of OBH, she is driving forward the adoption of an outcomes based approach to healthcare. It was refreshing to see a fellow medic who has also embraced IT, but she unlike me has a computer science degree too. And as one of Management Today’s “35 women under 35”, she is surely a leader to align yourself with. Her company has received some much needed funding recently from the Outcomes Data Lab and Sense 360 to the tune of £1m and £100k respectively.

Then the audience was graced with the presence of James Balmain, who is Co-Founder and CEO for Zesty. “Zesty allows patients to book healthcare appointments, on any device, in under 60 seconds.” which James had the great pleasure of telling the audience. We were well and truly impressed by the achievements of Zesty, which don’t just include receiving over £10m investment over 4 the last years, but also the impact Zesty has had on improving outpatient appointment efficiency. If they were the sole supplier of healthcare appointment management solutions, they estimate they could earn £810m. So just reaching 10% of the market would make them a very successful company.

Three smaller businesses looking for further investment then pitched some of their exciting work. Breaking Free explained how they are transforming access to evidence-based treatment for addictive behaviours. What struck me was how dated the solution looked, but it was running very successfully which only further highlighted how unimportant UX is to investors and big businesses.

I was much more intrigued by Cambridge Bio-AugmentationSystems which is going to changing the way we treat amputees. Their solution involves a socket fixated to the bone of the stump which skin can grow in to and around. With such a secure seal to prevent infection, the “twist and click” system for attaching a new prosthesis is slick, reliable, and will have a realistic lifespan of two decades. With an $8bn estimated market in 2020, the future is very bright for this start up.

Finally Bleep Bleeps impressed us with their family of devices which made being and indeed becoming parents all that easier. Their products include cameras to check on sleeping little ones, a male fertility tester and an ultrasound scanner. The devices are delightful to look at as each has an easily identifiable face.

Before ending the evening with pizza and doing some networking, I offered the final question to the panel of investors on the night, by asking what their views were on UX and optimising the aesthetics and usability. I received a disappointing yet anticipated answer from both Imperial Innovations and Apposite Capital who not only said that UX wasn’t really that important but also explained that clinical staff, doctors especially were expecting clunky software solutions. Robbie gave are more balanced answer though, explaining that it is indeed important to have a product that makes money but  that one must strike that balance between usability that leads to a product delivered quickly rather than delaying and not selling to anyone. It was James however who echoed my own personal view, prove to the investors how usability will earn them more money, and they will still invest. Ultimately, investors want to invest in a business that will give a return, otherwise they would be simply donating and will soon run out of money.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the event, and eagerly await the next one.

Thanks for reading.

I JUST READ…GIVING UX ADVICE: GETTING BUY-IN

So I found this article whilst Googling.

Like many people who work on design projects in general, and not just UX practitioners, its so important to articulate concerns and simple advice so that people actually listen and act upon your recommendations. The challenge, as the article by Tema Frankoutlines, there are three possible reasons why you may feel like you are talking to a brick wall, with usually all three reasons being the case

• They are impatient
• Developers and designers don’t want to admit they may have gotten it wrong
• The company doesn’t want to spend the money

Tema builds a very good case for how you should conduct yourself when you are feeling frustrated that you have the answer to both known and unknown questions that a project faces; be patient and empathic. The developers and the seniors are all human beings with complex emotions and needs. They all want to have a great product but at times have to make sacrifices otherwise there will be no product at all. So being completely against them won’t help. You need to be on their side and speak their language, but also remember that things won’t get sorted overnight. Genuinely care about everyone’s concerns and priorities and work as a team member rather than an employed outsider. Tema sums this up as “Aligning Objectives”, and she is spot on.

Happy reading!

http://uxpamagazine.org/giving-ux-advice/Frank, T. (2015). Giving UX Advice: Getting Buy-In. User Experience Magazine, 15(4).

I’m a student again!

Skinny jeans, hoodies, over-sized glasses.

Backpacks, folders haemorrhaging loose sheets of paper, dangly ID badges.

I’m surrounded by hundreds, nah thousands of students. And I’m loving it.

I’m a student again!!!

My first week here at UCL has been an exciting one. I’m enrolled as a student for the University College London Interaction Centre masters course in Human Computer Interaction with Ergonomics. I’ll be learning about how humans work with technology and how we can design our interactions for the benefit of everyone, not just selfish designers! There are around 60 students on my course, most of which are full time master's students. About 10 of us are doing the masters part time over 2 -3years (I’m just doing it in 2 years)

There are some really incredible people in my faculty. Be it the lecturers or the students, we have such a wealth of knowledge, experience and ideas. But we also literally come from around the world and represent pretty much every continent and most countries. Its wonderful being surrounded by such culturally, professionally and academically diverse individuals.

This is all the more smile inducing when, as one part time student from the previous year put it, “We all have empathy”. We all genuinely care about making the lives of others, or dare I say change the world, through effective user centred design. Now you might be wondering what user centred design actually is. Feel free to check this wikipedia page :)

We had a number of generic lectures which explained the course modules, as well as preparing us for being academics again, especially if you haven’t been to university for a few years, like myself. There was also a very well pitched session on the Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment policy and got attendees thinking about their options if they faced sexual harassment of any kind and what could be the best way to intervene if it was deemed appropriate.

My first lecture will on Ergonomics of Design. I can’t wait! I have my sketchbook (we don’t use notebooks as UX professionals!) and Sharpie (a UX professionals best friend in pen form or “penified”) and iPad 4 with keyboard I bought from eBay for £165 with free P&P. With half backlit display which I only noticed once I locked in my highest bid.

Yeah!!!!

PS the iPad actually works perfectly well, and the backlight is surprisingly nowhere near as bad as it looks in the photo.

HETT EXPO 2015

This year’s Healthcare Efficiency Through Technology (HETT) expo, and my first ever HETT expo, was a great opportunity to learn about the current and future digital and technology projects, products and services happening on a global level.

The vast majority of my time was spent talking to staff at the dozens of stands in the grand Olympia conference hall. The freebies on offer were what one would generally expect; branded pens, branded sticky notepads, more branded pens, branded mints followed by even more branded pens. Yet I was pleasantly surprised by imprivata®, who gave me a branded glasses cleaning cloth! They even had branded car lighter USB charger device thingies!!! Thankfully they demonstrated were substance over style (which is saying something since they are rather stylish with their vibrant red brand). Their digital solution “…optimises clinical workflows by removing technology barriers”, which more less means they allows staff in clinical settings to wake up a computer and log in to a computer with the touch of card, which can often be their ID badge. Once in there will be no need to type a password again for any software they have entered a username, password or any other credentials for. “Single sign-on” as we like to call it is surely the way forward and doesn’t just save time from typing credentials, but crucially time having to remember a password, or worse, speaking to someone from the IT helpdesk to reset your password (including the minutes to actually get through to someone). And with the use of a dedicated webcam (which doesn’t come cheap, I might add), you can leave the computer desk in an emergency without the fear of someone using the computer with you still logged in. The dedicated webcam has very sophisticated sensors which are specifically looking for you, and logs you out if you go walkies.

Andy Bratt, Managing Director of Graphnet, gave me a lovely bottle of branded water. He also showed me the impressive work he is doing with his “CareCentric software [which] facilitates the planning and delivery of care services across a whole health community.” CareCentric acts as a portal to connect different clinical systems together, but is also powerful enough to work as an Electronic Health Record itself.

Dr Now® didn’t give me anything as exciting, just some novelty business cards in the shape of iPhones, but their video GP consultation service definitely held my attention. You can have unlimited consultations with an experienced GP between 7am and 10pm for just £5/month (yes, £5/month!!!). Consultations shouldn’t last more than about 6 minutes. Or, if you don’t want to pay monthly, it’s a £29 per consultation, which is about £20 cheaper than the average cost to see an NHS GP. A Dr Now® GP can even have prescription medicines sent to your door within a few hours when necessary, particularly useful if going to a pharmacist is not a viable option. On top of that, the service can be provided to companies in order to reduce costs on healthcare insurance or an in-house GP.
Although they are direct competitors, it was great learning about the interoperability work both Intersystems® and System C were working on, especially since their respective work meant that their solutions had to communicate with each other’s software. It shows that these businesses ultimately want to do what is best for patients, not just what is best for their own financial gain.

Another interesting product was the mobile healthcare platform Nervecentre which can process patient observations, handover, clinical assessments and task management. Whenever a user of the app wants to speak to another clinician, a nurse to a doctor for example, they can send instant messages within the app itself, and when necessary, to the patient’s clinical record as well. Its innovations like Nervcentre which will change the landscape of healthcare in general where clinical staff can perform all their documentation and receive all their alerts through a mobile device they can carry and one at the bed side.

Definitely a lot of inspiring work was on display and I look forward to seeing how healthcare will improve as these companies continue to work so hard on their products and services. I certainly learned a lot and can’t wait for next year’s event.

Thanks for reading

Starting my new job

Look at my wonderful desk

It’s a Monday morning, the sun is shining, and the fan on my temporary desktop computer is not growling any more. I’m sitting at my desk in our London Bridge offices where I’ve been employed on a 12 month contract as the Enterprise and Technology Fellow for the Health Innovation Network. I’ll be working on a number of healthcare IT projects lending my clinical knowledge and user centred design skills. 



Although my manager wasn’t present during my first two days at the end of last week, we set some time aside the week previously. We discussed what I was likely to expect from the role and what I should get up tofor the few weeks, such as sorting out a laptop to use, and getting to know more about what the team is working on so I can then get involved myself. It’s a very friendly environment to be in. The office is open plan, but spacious and clean. We are on the ground floor next to tourist attractions, so I most often see people’s heads going past nearby windows, but it’s nice seeing the river on my way in to work. There is a lot of opportunity to learn and give back to my new team. Super excited!

That's my name!!!

There are Darzi Fellows here as well, clinical staff who too are focusing their time on something a little different to treating patients on the wards. They work on improving health outcomes in four strategic areas; alcohol, diabetes, dementia and musculoskeletal disease. My team provide informatics support to those areas primarily through the use of data visualisation software Tableau. It’s a really powerful tool, and I am enjoying learning how to use it.

You can have a look at my first Tableau by clicking the link below.

https://public.tableau.com/views/BuildingSeattle_192/BuildingSeatle?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y

There is a lot of opportunity to learn and grow at the HIN. We have a broad objective and being a creative thinker is encouraged. As an organisation, I can already see that we don’t just talk about making change in South London and beyond, but we already have achieved some impressive goals and will continue to do so.

No back to work for me! I have a lot of reading to do to help my team and the HIN on the whole look at the at the health priorities of the 12 boroughs in South London and publishing our accomplishments thus far.

Ciao for now!

I did it!

So it's official, I am now a newly appointed Non-Clinical Governor for Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT). Here's the proof! I found out a few days ago, but it took a while before the computers at work had my name on their desktop wallpaper advertising my new position.

I have a lot of work ahead of me now. Even though the Council of Governors (CoG) are meant to meet once every four months, I actually have a 3 events to go to before my first official CoG meeting.

Just as I had written before, one of my major goals is to improve IT at GSTT by creating a forum made up of clinical, operational management and IT staff who can debate what's going on in GSTT's IT world. We hope to have our first event in August, but a great deal of planning needs to be done before then to ensure we have a successful launch.

I'm really thankful for all those that voted, not just for me, but to actually make the effort to vote. Just under 11% of non-clinical staff voted however, and this is worrying. Is it because they don't care? They didn't have the time to fill in the paper or online ballot. Did they not even receive a ballot? I really think the CoG need to look at why so few people vote, and how we can change this. Since if they don't vote for new CoG members, how can they expect to have their voices heard? Perhaps they don't think anyone will want to listen. Well I for one do. It's my job to listen, and to feedback to the Board of Directors, and wherever I can, help to make life better for colleagues and the patients we all serve, irrespective of our role as a GSTT member of staff.

So yes, I'm a happy man, but my eyes and ears are still open, and I'm ready to do my duty as Non-Clinical Governor.