welcome to this m-tech access webinar ATM Tech access we provide Health economics and outcomes research and Market access services from strategy through to implementation our unique NHS relationships guide and validate everything we do in the UK we work with over 80 NHS Associates to bring our pharmaceutical and Medtech clients authentic insights into the NHS we can help you answer key questions related to the NHS from how to communicate with integrated Care Systems places and Primary Care networks to how to capture Pathways of care get in touch today to discuss your Market access goals first though I hope you enjoy the webinar welcome everyone to the NHS Whispers session I'm Phil Richardson um and today we'll be covering data-led transformation in the NHS and how perhaps we could partner to optimize patient care we've got a great mix of audience here today between industry and the NHS and I particularly like to welcome our NHS Associates and play a key role in the work we do for those that don't know us mtech access is a specialist Health economics outcomes and Market access consultancy with a track record and expert delivery who provides especially support to both pharmaceutical and med tech clients and work as a collaborative partner with the NHS today we focus on specifically the role of data-driven transformation and I'm absolutely delighted to welcome our speaker Stephen Slough who's the cdio for Dorset ICB welcome Stephen hi Phil thanks very much uh it's great to have you here today particularly as digitals playing such a key role in the transformation in the NHS and the much broader conversation but I think before we get stuck into that I'd really be good to help our audience understand a little bit more about about you the your current role and your responsibilities yeah sure so um I as you mentioned I'm the chief digital information officer for the Dorset ICB which is the the the new uh construct National construct from the NHS to look after 42 separate Geographic areas around the country and we're lucky to have endorse it the opportunity to have a digital representative in that board able to be involved in the conversations and hopefully steer the direction of some of those conversations to make sure Digital Data technology and Innovation is included from the outset rather than at the end of the conversation so um it's a great opportunity for the digital profession um and a really good opportunity I think to help us start to work more to link together how the NHS works with local authorities um with the voluntary sectors with private sector companies med tech and Pharma being big parts of both of those um yeah and ultimately make a difference for our population so yeah it's an exciting role and exciting time great um it is good to hear and it builds a lot of the work you've done previously which I'd love to get into a little bit more as we go through our conversation um could you tell me a little bit more about your team and and how if it can just expand on that a little bit you talked about quite a complex range of stakeholders um and it'll be good to understand how how does that work or maybe even a day in the life of Stephen Slough what does that look like it starts pretty early with walking the dog but that's probably not interesting to most people um yeah so it it's a really we have a really good collaborative approach in Dorset which is which is useful because lots of conversations we need to have can be quite complicated um and the challenges we face you know same so we're also the NHS are quite tough so being able to have those conversations are are very useful um the team here at the ICB itself so our digital team looks after the technology for this organization and for Primary Care endorset and we've got various other elements of it which then bring in Specialties around providing digital access to patients at home through various different med tech Solutions and our Dorset intelligence and insight service the dice platform which is our data and intelligence platform um kind of comes through this team as well but interestingly is hosted through two of our partner organizations so it makes it a genuinely um what's the best way to put it a genuinely system involved a product program which draws on the collaboration and makes it fits in with the way we work with that collaborative approach other things like automation IG are all involved and big parts of what we do too um and the conversations typically that I would have day by day are with our various different partners across the system with challenges we're trying to address together around particular replacement for different platforms approaches to how we work together and of course conversations with partners and suppliers and people who are prospective partners and suppliers who want to come and work with us and help us with the challenges that we face it's never a dull moment I think it's probably fascinating and then on top of that you're obviously dealing with anything any crisis or or challenge that emerges for operationally to get involved in any of any of that yeah absolutely we do and we um if there are cyber instance which are on the increase as you could imagine we get involved in that and how we can support and the the platforms that we run from here and also across across the system we get involved in supporting with all of those two so that does sound a lot so the dog walk in the morning so what's your dog called I'm sure everybody'd be interested in what kind of dog it is he's a small Cockapoo he's nine years old now so we've got ahead of the Cockapoo Trend and he's called Oreo so he's now famous I suppose so Trend setting or on every level including well-being walks first thing absolutely yeah yeah so so you you mentioned dice um and that that's got some national interest hasn't it and and I think it was very early the work you and the team were doing were very early about integration when people were talking about interoperability you were you were creating solutions to help decision making do you want to just expand a little bit on that because I think you I think that I think our lessons would be generally interested in how far you've got on that data Journey yeah of course so the the dice so the intelligence and insight service platform we've created started a number of years ago and it's been a quite a a creative journey I suppose to get it to where it is so we started it with our digital strategy in 2016 of having a way of bringing data together from all the different data sources that we have across the system to provide a way of looking at how effective and efficient we are at running and providing the services that we have from that initial concept um to where we are today has been a huge transformation really in in ways of working together and then output in ways patients are treated and you know if I look at that original ambition the team that I delivered today have just totally smashed that out of the park it's gone Way Beyond where we thought and really excited about what might be starting to come next uh with our opportunities on that and it really was uh interesting it was it was quite hard to keep the momentum going and to keep the investment going to make it fundable or to keep it funded sorry um before the pandemic but we'd work really hard until that point to get lots of really good data sets together that's when the pandemic hit the team were able to very quickly spin up in a single visual the entire impact of covid on the Dorset population in near as near real time as we needed to be able to operate it and that was the game changing moment for the product if you like that we've created internally um because that was the piece that everybody kind of went Ah that's what you meant when you were saying data would be able to be really useful to us and we haven't looked back since then I no longer need to try and find funding for it every year the team is funded everything we're looking at in terms of our strategy moving forward mentions it because data-led is the way we should be going so it's been a brilliant transformation and it is ingesting data from all of primary care our acute hospitals Community Mental Health hospitals local authorities we're in conversations with the local police force fire and rescue service and some private sector organizations as well so we're and that helped create a really good picture that enables us to leverage proper population Health Management for Dorset and it's fantastic and obviously I can attest to it having having worked with you for a quite a long time absolutely to then be a customer of the dice dashboard in my guild command role through covid um it was it was absolutely used on a day-by-day basis by both gold silver and bronze commands um down to how many beds have we got where who's got oxygen where's ventilation water what stuff sickness we got was covered related what is the what does that mapping look like across the county so we can see where the hot spots are so it was a massively useful tool and and including getting some attention actually didn't it with the national code covered team so I think I think it's a great example isn't it of how how you can actually drive transformative work and and it's and it's more than just about having data and I'd like to explore a little bit about that with you for cam yeah it's definitely more than just about the data um the team the team that we the teams that we had we have developed this internally um were spreadsheet Warriors before and but they understood the data if the data moved changed in a certain way they knew why what the drivers were and what caused it so by then giving them access to more up-to-date tools than a spreadsheet uh they can create visualizations bringing in mapping and various other pieces like that which then unlock just a what would have been a graph previously and turn it into something much more visually impactful and uh you could drill down through that data to get to actionable insights for a small cohort of the population so it's pseudonymized and nobody knows who these people are um but it can be re-id back into primary care so if we find an area that needs action taken GPS can be appropriately informed and alerted and can then take that action next time they see that patient or proactively get in touch with them and we used it didn't we with the with the vaccination um efforts because we created specific tool sets to support vaccination mapping and tracking indoors it and we were able to specifically target areas of the population where the uptake wasn't where it needed to be for the vulnerability of those patients and also because we have some of the demographic data we knew how to talk to those members of the public in the right way that meant the message landed and was received and actually turned the direction of their decisions not be vaccinated so it's it's having the right impact so that's a great example of a strategic oversight saying look we've noticed a pattern here and we we can actually now put into the GPS hands a list of names of people that might need some support some help some intervention and I guess you it also probably deals with the question in the opposite direction which is a GP or a clinician saying to you can you tell me who my hypertensives are who've got a mental health episode who might have had an ed presentation who might be of this socioeconomic group or race or something so that's a it is that is that currently how it's being used or are clinicians using it in Anger as it were to help solve tricky therapy problems yes they are and a few of them are evangelists about it very definitely and and they're brought in wholeheartedly to it and engaged with the team uh to work out how they improve it further regularly um and there's a few particular areas where Consultants from acute hospitals are very heavily involved in wanting to understand what the data is previously would have been you know linear fashionable just in a list in the spreadsheet can now be visualized in the way that they can then go well actually can you can you get me some data on that as well because that might change how I'm seeing this and it might change then what I do for those patients if we have the data we we can then the analyst will create that for the consultant sit with them and then go through it with them and it has been part of the success of the dice in that from the outset whilst we had to work out the technology to make it as scalable and workable as it is uh all of the visualizations are clinically LED or operationally LED we haven't sort of sat there in a bit of a analyst Fest and gone to this would be good let's create one of those it's all been to answer a specific question or series of questions to help improve outcomes or help improve the way care is delivered and that has some interesting knock-on benefits as well so does that put you in a space where you can have a direct conversation with the clinicians in a an evidence-based conversation as opposed to an opinion based conversation because I see lots of conversations happening in all systems across the country where there's lots of very strong clinical opinion but it's often not supported by patient-led evidence um it's supported by subsets which don't tell the whole story so do you find that's changed the type of conversation you can have yes definitely and it's maybe because we're able to present to the clinician information which their previous approach and thought process on it wasn't available to them so they were kind of almost not blind and they have a lot of skill and intuition and um experience of course but if you then suddenly you know enable basing that what they knew from that experience but all of a sudden we're adding in this wider part of the situation that might challenge them to think in a slightly different way which might change what they do because all of a sudden the evidence is there and it was you know it has been interesting the impact of using this um tool and indeed covid in particular because lots of attempts to trying to introduce new technology early on in the pan or before the pandemic sorry were met with a bit of skepticism of uh well we've always done it this way so we'll always do it this way um covid landed and that that didn't work anymore and then new technology was all of a sudden The Only Way Forward particularly with remote consultations for example so the distrust and anxiety that existed before didn't matter anymore it had to come in and had to be used and that has played on then in the use of data in the way we use the dice so how how do you then scale out to a system-led approach or how does it help you shape the your digital transformation approach because I imagine there are no now lots of individual clinical areas very excited by what they can what they can do what they can access we've got primary care which is which is a much broader church around um all areas some of which is handling different settings that that in a dice for you becomes then a a brilliant mechanism but also um fragmentation mechanism so how do you how do you balance the challenge to do everything and yet do something um well we haven't really slowed down the effort everybody sort of stepped up enormously didn't they yeah when covid hit and we haven't really stepped that back so we are arguably suffering a little bit from the success of the dice and how well that went down and how much it's been used because now everybody is starting to look to it so we're our ICP strategy was uh published just before Christmas and we're we're actively working through how now we bring in uh the clinical and operational strategies to to help us deliver that and once those are clear then how we develop our people how we bring in data and how we will operate and commission will all come together to then achieve that that ask um from the ICP but as I said I think earlier on every aspect of what we need to do in the future now looks to data because we want to be informed in what we do we don't have the resources we know people or or financial to just go and do some things if they're not going to change the outcomes for the patients and reduce waiting lists and improve um or reduce waiting times in ed for example anchors handovers those sorts of things so everybody wants to have the insights about where we are and we then need to be able to adapt the dice because it has not historically done this quite as much so then keep track of all the changes over time so that when we get to the desired state that was set out in a strategy or close to it we can see actually if the impact that we intended has landed and if not hopefully along the way we can start to inform and nudge in different directions the challenge that brings is the demand on a team is is considerable because we've kind of opened Pandora's Box yeah on data uh and everybody wants some which is great it's fantastic but it's we're going to have to prioritize I think the things we look at and there's a number you know how do I get data science better embedded how do we get our machine learning running on this to reduce some of the the demands on the team but those are future developments we're still thinking about so if you take the if you take those as um important things to start now so become a priority it's a uh it's a bit like what can you what do you need to start now that you will use later um and there are things that you need to start now which you need to use now what what's your basket of priorities look like now what's in top of head what are the things that you're putting your energy behind uh first one comes back to the the people and the team so they've been working incredibly hard uh for an extended period of time and they've got that super creative way about them now but we need to get behind them um we need to support their development further make sure they've got the right opportunities they need uh to keep them interested to keep them excited to keep them inspired and you know stay with us rather than look to somewhere else so the people is the first thing more generally cyber is then there the amount of attack attempts we get as a small organization in the NHS let alone the broader piece across the system every day is crazy from all sorts of walks of life and parts of the parts of the world trying to to break in um so we have to make sure we've got that secure base then it's getting the more of the basics right leveling up the infrastructure um I read an article from another consultancy earlier on today who are still saying this is a big part of what the NHS needs to focus on getting that right because if you implement lots of fantastic new technologies and it still takes five minutes to log in in the morning completely less interested in using the new Solutions and then I think for me everything else hinges off data being the priority if we agree that data is the prize operationally let's say that will drive the questions around well what do I need to make sure I can get the best quality and depth and breadth of data into an analytics platform that draws out those better insights and is that we continue with the fragmented aged applications that we have or do we need to consider investment to improve the application so the quality of data that can be held is better so that data in turn feeds through greater insights and improved intelligence that means the actions we take for the population then become smarter more informed and more and better rounded so I think data then is the launch pad for all the other change that we're going to need to make and all the other transmission efforts that we all need to change technically and that's a that's a huge undertaking when when you when you have a you know many years of transactional data that's captured some of which has questions about quality some of which has questions about sequencing or timing and and some of it was fundamentally the wrong question was asked at the start so everything that's been gathered and I I can't remember but the last thing you told me about gigaflops Peter flops or teraflops or something of information that may or may not be useful um that that that that's quite a lot to sort out as well as some of the things you I I know we've talked about in the past around infrastructure um getting just the fundamentals right that nobody's interested in but are completely essential I know you touch on cyberb but there's there's simple things aren't there like our hardware and software that you just need to basically system running but if we if we look back to the 1980s which I realized is now 40 years ago so a lot of the audience might not be aware of what happened there like 1980s um but there was a focus at that time on single view the customer the customer relationship management Nirvana was if we thoroughly understand everybody well their wants and needs we can best tailor our services to them you know if I'm if I bring that to a patient center probably a citizen-centered view actually because ideally we're looking for people who who don't need health interventions we're looking for people to lead healthy and well lives um is that a Nirvana for you in the system to get a single view of the of the of the person is that something that you you would have as an aspiration or perhaps based on what you've said so far quite a long way along the journey to do that yeah it is absolutely because that deeper level of understanding around people who are already ill should help us work out how they maybe ended up getting there so people are currently not ill could be advised in ways to help them adjust their lifestyle and their their approach perhaps to exercise eating mental health Wellness uh work-life balance all those sorts of things would have a positive impact on living healthier for longer which has got to be the aim isn't it um so yeah that that is definitely the Nirvana so you're when you're in a consultation with somebody you're you're treating the whole person in front of you rather than the symptom that they're presented with and whilst the dice can do that with a pseudonymized view and it becomes richer and more informed and more data sets we add we've also got the the Dorset care record which is a product we developed with a with a with a provider partner um to pull together as many of the different clinical records that exist and the social care records that exist for our population so you do start to get that identifiable complete picture of that patient um we haven't finished that Journey but it's a good it's a good way along with new data being added that again rounds off um that view of the person that sat in front of you as a clinician so whilst you might work in one of our organizations you've got the opportunity to to log into this and get that more rounded View and it will get better over time as well yeah no thanks it's a big challenge well whilst you're also trying to deal with the effect of the pandemic um on all sorts of different things and and I think as we were talking broadly about transformation and you've talked about data be quite interesting just coming back to your conversation about the pandemic and the impact it had um could you share a little bit about your perspectives and have they changed as a result because you're you're a very experienced digital um leader um and you you've got an industry background and you've come into the NHS and you continue to build um you know measurable transformed systems and solutions and and now for patient benefit as opposed to for uh for uh for other benefit you talk about the technology and you talked about the the impact of that ad and and some behaviors and some mindsets were reset rather quickly within weeks as I observed um what about your perspectives though has how are you still on the same Mission you were you know 10 years ago or as it as are you different is there a new is a Stephen slab version too um well it was useful in many ways uh which is an awful thing to say about a pandemic that's had a such terrible cost to individuals and organizations as well but it has helped it has catapulted technology and digital into the the Forefront of people's minds much more some of the anxiety and perhaps almost reticence to use it has not entirely gone away and is perhaps a little bit more healthy with its skepticism than just being a straight out no um so yeah it definitely has had an impact that the challenge it presents for us is because we have done quite well as a profession meeting the demands that came our way during the pandemic the expectations will now continue to deliver in that way which brings different sorts of challenges because we have to get much smarter at prioritization than we were before no I I I I can see that it's it's quite interesting it's almost a Simpsons moment isn't it where the where you've been saying we need to do this and then we can't do it we need to do this no we can't do it we need to do no we need to do it yes you can oh well right okay we're not We're not gonna have to do this so which is fair but it's it is interesting to see that that so some of the the core principles that you've certainly been advocating and the team certainly all rally around continue through and it's not just a knee-jerk response and because I do see elements of some approaches are a a re-batching of of not quite the right way of doing it but rebadging it or playing a wrap around I think the things you talk about the core principles that sit within the you know let me understand who we're trying to drive Benford let fit for let me understand how we bring the information together so it's useful for decision makers all those things that under you know let me make sure there's a platform that actually is robust and reliable and safe and all the things you've you always talk about it's good to see that that's continued and that in the pen the pandemic itself has just allowed some of them to to get attraction a bit more which I think is only for the good yeah and it it's not um it's not quite as exciting as it to invest money in a technology that isn't seen and isn't really understood by people in terms of you know that basic core infrastructure um foundational layer but none of the fancy stuff works without it none of the insights generating computing um work will be possible analytical work will be possible without the infrastructure being right but you must have therapy groups however you can join to talk about that sort of thing yes we will go and sit quietly Rock together which is which which is excellent if we just step back a bit then because we were we touched on earlier about industry and and and the the other thread of the conversation today around as well as data transformation is is partnership and and you and I definitely talked about it for many years that um individual organizations individual groups individual sectors can't solve these things on their own they need to be it's a multi-disciplinary solution with Academia industry the NHS and wider partners coming together certainly conversations I'm having with uh farmer med tech and Academia is we'd love to be involved we we've got we've got our own data we've got our own Insight we'd love to be involved um we're not quite sure how to do it or or where to even start uh other or are there any hints and tips to and I'm really trying to avoid you suddenly getting a thousand phone calls after this session by the time you'll see them need to come talk to you because I've got a really great thing but something that could help make it make it make the connections smoother make them more value-based make them um more more useful are there some things based on your experience today that you could perhaps share with with us yeah I think so and it I'd imagine everybody um experiences the same you know the cold caller attempts to come and um sell you something it's a bit tiresome and you get lots of emails and lots of requests of uh you know we've got this brilliant thing we love to come and sell it to you and it's hard to get technology into the NHS from what I've seen um it's hard to get really new innovation in as well because there are there's quite rightly there's quite a bit of Regulation to ensure that what you bring in is is safe but it is possible and if has somebody who's got a product if you've done your research first of all of the people you're going to go and speak to and the environment that they're in uh and the organization they're in and how they work and try to find out what some of the challenges are so you're turning up with with I with with a way to help them solve the problems rather than bring them a product which you're trying to sell so it's yeah try again try to understand what we're facing and specifically in some cases and come with an answer and if your product doesn't match that it's almost a case then don't come because we don't have the capacity and the time really uh all the funding and it will just be lots of Engagement all that will be lovely if we could afford it but we can't so um try to understand where we're at and I still now the ccg ended um last year first of July the icbs were created I still get emails from people trying to sell stuff to the clinical commissioning group which hasn't existed um I just ignore them they go straight at the bin because they haven't bothered to look they haven't tried to understand I get emails coming to the ICB referencing us as a trust which we're not that goes in the bin because they're they're not they haven't done anything they've just got a list of emails and fired them on out so we want people that actually want to work with us who have something genuinely they know will help us because they understand the situation we're in and they come in and they then partner with us either that or what might be a longer period of time to get the product in and working or the solution in our working all the support there to help us rather than come in and sell something bounce to the next one yeah I can see that and I've also noticed more that that often the initial conversation needs to be more than one organization coming to say this is how how we can help rather than how a single organization helps is that something you're also seeing it absolutely is yeah and that some people will bring absolute expertise uh in a transportation layer for data for example and somebody else will bring the technology that that will feed that Transportation there that will get the data to where we need it to be in one of other applications or into the dice for analysts analysis um so yeah we're seeing quite a few Partnerships now sometimes two sometimes three or four major corporations sometimes um partnering with a new entrant to the market or a new technology and using um perhaps some of the larger brand names to help launch that into into front of us so part so partnership I think what I'm hearing from you and certainly what I've observed and the advice we we're giving to organizations is it's a team it's a team game not a product game and and actually for some organizations and some quite big ones that's quite a shift in culture for them to move from often products which go all the way to a global level without ever connecting horizontally into a solution based and that sounds like the the type of things that you would welcome organizations who are better informed have some insight have researched the situation and and come with the this this is how we think we might help solution orientation isn't it rather than our product orientation the team-based solution orientation it is and we've had some really good success with with some of that I mean one we were we were one of those Partners supporting really with something one of our local authorities had done with a major telecoms company and some other technology providers really superbly led by them at the local Authority that was a world first in some of the work they were doing uh and that sort of conglomeration of organizations almost brought together some very skilled people very capable people that then developed products because of and through that engagement it was really good so that that is good and it's great to see and and it's not really rocket science is it when you get the right people around the right conversation of the right purpose yeah the it does it does flow doesn't it the energy level does does really go up and it does flow it absolutely does yeah what what are things just uh I need a definition from you I for for uh for many years there's been the conflation between it apps tools applications digital and and it's used interchangeably between a I need to buy another laptop I need to download an app I need to transform the NHS I need to change how Clinical Services are delivered can you can you give us can you give us a definition that we can then cut out of this conversation and then we can just share with people just to help everybody everybody get organized so when they're talking about digital to you they mean the same digital that you mean yes we'll give that a go um whether you can cut out news or not I don't know but let's see so um it you know perhaps informatics and those sort of more traditional names for was now becoming digital which is where we'd like to be I think so the the it bit is that rinse and repeat product based here's your new laptop you need a new piece of software here's a new piece of software that you need access to that there's your access um it's the absolutely essential necessary aspect that is the unloved bit that sits in the background it's the help desk your phone it's the the server that's got your data on it's the switch that hooks everything together you never see but you rely on entirely um and that's that's critical that's important you can't really work without that but it doesn't do that it's really the the old run grow transform idea is to run that's what it does the digital service then is very different to that it's almost the almost the other end of the scale so it does all of those things because that's a big component part of making sure there's a landscape that will work but it's got to make sure that the team and the organization have the right skills to be able to harness and take advantage of new technology and new innovation what's coming out a digital service is then going to act as a as a catalyst really to be bringing about change to force um in some cases Force the agenda for change required to bring about a different way of working we should be clear certainly in my view there are really very few pure I.T or projects anymore all projects that we are involved in are business transformation projects that will have an element of digital because there is almost no aspect of any of the service that's provided today that won't somehow at some point rely on at least one digital piece of technology even if that's just an email so that the change about how people use the technology that we Implement is a massive part or should be a massive part of what digital is rather than just what it is it's business transformation we're reflecting a business process electronically that's it at the end of it really but we need to be working out how we make sure not only are our first customer being clinicians are serviced and carers are serviced by technology but also the public how do we then engage the public if we want to use more technology with the public for the public to help them look after themselves outside of a care setting then we need to upskill the public as well as our second customer if you like and in that anything that we're developing and deploying outside of the walls of a care setting where we're expecting the public to use it has to be co-designed with them well it should be if you want it to succeed otherwise you're going to get what a bunch of techies and um clinicians think is the right answer which might perfectly suit the internal process but be so complex and unworkable and unwieldy to the the patient or member of the public and needs to use it that it becomes unusable and the uptake won't be there you've got to balance the transformation on um making big step change if that's possible with the regular and and small step change um because sometimes the little things you tweak might have a massive impact operationally internally but then head on to improve how the um how the public are serviced so it's about I think mindset change away from everything is just about the laptop of the South front of you to understand that actually you're looking at everything you do and all the technology that's going to sit behind that easy to cut that out yeah no we're gonna have to run a second episode now to to take over the detail I but I think that was brilliant because I think the some of the things that I I took away from that is digital is a mindset and I and I think that that's a that's really powerful I think digital is transformation and there are there are transformation projects rather than digital projects so there's some I.T projects so replacing the wiring the cap cable the routers and switches or something is a fine detail project but but digital is is a transformation and I just want to connect back to your earlier comments about um working in Partnership the partnership conversation needs about the what difference it's going to make which is a transformation question not the how many whatever it is whatever the features are of whatever the thing is and I think that's going to be really critical for Pharma companies who are moving into the combined um prescription molecule and prescription digital solution and the composite of that and also those working in the more broader med tech space who are trying to bring in Solutions um the real risk is that there's a focus on implementing a product whereas it's really clear I I think for you that it's a transformation space it's a mindset and and also it's a it's an ecosystem which is um patient or citizen inclusive it's not a bunch of people sitting um in a burning discs as they used to and it says standardize on an implementation of products so I I think I think that's that was really helpful because it it ties nicely into the the next thing I'd quite like to explore with you is is the research uh space so so we talked about the patient-centered piece we've talked about new ways of working and transforming ways of working research or research and Innovation together or create a critical transformation leader two which are enabled by digital and more recently the secure data environment which is the trusted research environment that that space can you just bring that to life give me a some sense of what that means and how it might fit into a broader industry conversation yes and the aim of it is really for those that haven't seen anything about it is is to really start to provide uh formal and structured engagement mechanisms with the NHS uh to access the data that it has and it has a hell of a lot in an appropriate way with all the right ethics and regulations in place to secure both the researcher and the owners of the data to really unlock all the hidden gems frankly that are going to sit in that data that will help transform hopefully the way Pharma products med tech products other software solutions for accessibility and Equity maybe as well so that you can have real real world data to make sure you're going to do the right thing and in the right way that will have a benefit and hopefully then over time be able to keep coming back to prove that it's had the impact that you you've set out to do and they are they are a great idea if we can work on how to make it work with the technology we will be able to make that work um but the opportunity there is is is huge and the opportunity for us to be able to link some of those um secure data environments together over time so that you could almost do something across the whole population again appropriately regulated with the right ethics the right controls in place um it could be really exciting really interesting I I I I think it's a brilliant brilliant step forward and I and I'm aware of you know teams have tried to do some of this in isolation before and it is It's Tricky and as you mentioned at the style it's very hard to engage the NHS with an appropriate level of information with the appropriate group at the appropriate time and certainly we see a lot of people who are who believe they've got the evidence they need but very quickly fall short of an of an NHS within an NHS conversation so so this should this should make the walls porous shouldn't it between industry the NHS and the patient in in a absolutely ineptically controlled regulated ways you've said it yeah for for things that will help patients and solve system challenges come together with less friction yeah and it could be really powerful if if we if we're able to achieve it it could be really it could be exciting so you've already talked about quite a lot of things that sit in the broader ecosystem there's conversations at the moment population Health Management there is Big Data there's business intelligence there's Health economics there's evaluation there's the whole how we're going to improve um care together and and most of the conversations tend to polarize to an area such as population Health Management and then that turns into a almost a database conversation but the languages you're using are of or are different to that and and I know you and I have talked about uh I think you coined it as the data Galaxy um at one point and I don't think it's chocolate related but it it but it's something or maybe it was but it's some it's something that I think there's a lot for people to to get there they get their head around is is there a is it a thing is it is it something we should think about is it something the conversation we should be engaging in is it a Clarion call to bring people together or is it just a conceptual thing that somebody's doodled and it's turned into a white paper and a and a LinkedIn blog around the sdes you mean yeah I was thinking that because all of the all the things we've talked about so far connect to that secure data environment don't they they do yeah and I I guess that and the value of the information that's going to appear that we can share um it should really be a byproduct and certainly that's the approach that we've taken with the dice and our approach to that has enabled us to start to pull together data you then start to show it to people it starts to have an impact on how they then care for their patients or how they work with other partners in our system to improve care it has the impact then that people see well actually if I put more data in or better data in I'm going to get more intelligence at a higher quality so I can make more informed decisions and have better outcomes for people so it becomes a kind of a self-improving but self-motivated self-improving mechanisms that levels up data quality and use of application so it also comes back to that point of if we don't have the right applications to capture that data it will start to drive that pressure for us to improve the quality of the application so the data is is captured more effectively because of that we end up with a really good high quality dataset we can use internally which is what the dice helps us with but also make that high quality data available to Industry it's very different in its approach to how some of the the current national initiatives are going which are based around performance data the performance data won't give the level of insight certainly won't give the opportunity for the research that this will because performance data is presented in a very almost pass or fail kind of way and you won't necessarily Drive the right internal response to improve data quality of our performance because that's not interesting to clinicians particularly but if it's driven around what they're trying to do with their patient it will be and that will dramatically improve hopefully Care by the end of it so to be able to answer the questions because it's got what should always come back to the patient to answer the question but how do we keep people healthier for longer at a higher quality of life before they then need support from Health and Care Services yeah it's kind of got to come got to come back to that and once you've then got all those different um parts of the system working together you end up with those points of light back to the Galaxy analogy those points of light of data and you draw on them when you need to to help improve the picture of the person sat in front of you or to help improve the sets of data that we can provide for research um and getting some of those things right improves Health improves life expectancy improves uh the motivation the morale of people to be involved in the local economy and it sort of starts to spiral upwards if we can get the data no I can say and now that no thank you that was that's really helpful because I think that starts to show what the what the end could be and the end is not far away if we can bring these things together sooner and if we can work together on it rather than individual feels like um that is a that's a real goal worth attaining isn't it as opposed to a performance skill which is a hmm perhaps not not this it's just a completely different way of looking at the information isn't it yeah yes if if you've sort of sparked in my mind and it'll be a bit remiss of me not to ask you whereas you are one of the nhs's leaders in the digital space chat GPT what does that mean and with four version four coming out we had a and we had an internal conversation this morning between three and a half and four which um I would find very interesting but couldn't find anywhere I could actually practically use it but well I mean I just wanted just to get your your tongue-in-cheek view as opposed to you know go go to the go to the strategy meeting with it to you but you know what what's your take oh it's fantastic it's gonna be if we use it properly it could just be insane in what it can unlock and I think person uh version four is in being on the product um is in some search engines already uh others are available uh but it's it's insane what it can do um and what it could enable if we could take its algorithms and its ability to mine interpret and then respond about data um then if we could plug that into our data you could then ask it almost conversationally for insights into the data that we have in real time so that you could start to not only they could do simple things like scheduled patience and chop and change schedules and and things like that and you know make a more informed decision so if somebody's coming in for one appointment one week and another appointment next week or could he do two on the same day to give them one Journey or move it online or you know intelligent schedule I mean that's that should be simple but intelligent health related chat Bots um to help you with diagnosis of what you have there are several of those sorts of things available now but a more thoughtful and insightful Mental Health platform for people perhaps who are in crisis who need somebody to speak to could have a more conversational experience with one of those sorts of thoughts and with a person 24 7 whenever they needed to in complete confidence um it would just go on and on yeah and the conversation with with the conversation with a patient as you did that example also informing the data set which will be then subsequently interrogated to fine-tune the conversations I think it's interesting we the team here did this morning um run it against our NHS Whispers webinars And finally a whole lot of really interesting Insight that came out so um I'm not sure where the we're in a place where that we can share it yet but but even just on that sort of subset type question which is feeding it but feeding it in the process you can see how it could How would how it's another generational shift in our digital wheel drive transformation I think that absolutely there's things together yeah yeah that's good so watch this space then really definitely yes listen to all things you've talked about and and having had some experience myself in um policy makers and how they can sometimes be slightly off the message we'd ideally like um um this is your this is your opportunity for your wish list for the policy maker with the things you're trying to do that what you've achieved so far the things you're looking forward to what what are the things that would help you and and I'm thinking in your your executive role working to drive drive transformation across the across the uh dorsa population but really as a role model for for others what would your wish lists look like so if I if I had something I needed to ask of the the national colleagues and there's obviously and there's a lot of change going on for them so they're in a difficult space at the moment um I guess it's to listen and and then to include perhaps because having worked in um sort of central roles before uh in a previous company um they're quite tough they could be quite thankless because you're there giving out these messages in these directions but there is an opportunity isn't there to not do that in isolation if you listen engage with people who are still at the front line if you have been at the front line yourself to get the real issues that we're facing you can then come up with a policy change or a an idea or an initiative that will make a difference and you'll get engagement from everybody that you need and who you want to do that work for you rather than coming up with something that you think will be good based on what you knew and then trying to force that out it won't be as successful so yeah I think that would be that would be the one thing if I could ask would be to listen and include yeah I I think that sounds that sounds great and it sort of reminds me of the wisdom of the crowds type conversation the the expert policy writer May if they haven't addressed the wisdom that's available then then it's doomed not to work particularly well is it I think that's the situation we we've we've got a minute left and I and I and I wanted to just give you a quick snap question on um on pulling a dream team together your your version of The Avengers to drive digital transformation endorse it who would who I'm asking you to name names um but who who who would you have on the team um you'd need to have good representation wouldn't you from different places but goes back to the previous answer if you try and do it in isolation you you won't you won't succeed you'll be missing part of the puzzle so you need to have the people we're doing this for there needs to be population representation we need representation from each of our partners uh in Health and Care and you then need to bring in Industry specific brain power to help close the gaps on the things we don't know because we don't have the capacity to know all of those things bring in the Specialists on the subject uh each time um comes back to that partnership working we'll have a problem will need some help and it's it's the the call then for people to bring their organizations and join up with us sit on the same side of the table and look through the problem with us to come up with the answer that ultimately will make lives better brilliant well that is a that's a fantastic answer to to my last question um it's been a brilliant conversation with you thank you very much we've covered such a wide range of different topics I think the whole thing around um digital being transformation I think is a really strong takeaway message I think the whole thing about data but the right data and managed in a way that it's that it's improving continually to give better Insight I think is really strong and and I think the key thing around partnership and that that it is a there is a dream team right that can be around the table Lots around already so some of our colleagues perhaps potentially listening into this um seminar could provide a valuable contribution to that so I think that's a very strong place to finish I'd just like to thank you very much for your time it's um it's great to continue to work with you and I and I love to see the work that you've driven uh endorset um it's great to see how the patient benefits are obvious and continue to emerge so that is that is also brilliant I'd also like to thank our audience for uh joining us today and for those listening uh online to this recording um we welcome you to continue sharing your comments and questions with us um and I'd like to uh wrap up again by uh thank you Stephen for today um and uh wish you well with your plans uh going forward thank you for all great to talk to you thanks bye thank you for watching if you'd like to find out more about our work with the NHS or how we could support your Market access goals please email info mtechaccess dot Co dot UK or visit our website at mtechaccess dot Co dot UK
2023-04-06