A healthy obsession with tech
Did you know that the NHSis the world’s fifth largest employer?It’s an operation with so many people and layers of complexity that it occupiesone in 20 British workers. It’s quite incredible really, especially when youconsider that it comes in ahead of the likes of e-com giant Amazon andGerman-gone-global car manufacturer Volkswagen, among others. And yet, despiteits size, vital role in society and the fact that more than 1.5 million people are working for itnationwide, the NHS continues to fall significantly behind when it comes to thesupposed technological revolution that’s meant to be transforming healthcareprovision.
I recently became slightlyfascinated by this and the general state of the NHS — especially in the contextof technology and data. There are a couple of reasons why…
First one is that werecently worked on a piece of new business that was all about integration — andI’m talking full-scale integration used by huge enterprises that need tointegrate on-prem applications and data with cloud applications and data. Naturally,in our extensive research, we realised the power this could hold for the NHS…Imagine a healthcare system where all the different GP practices, primary caretrusts and everything in between were seamlessly connected to providepatients with much higher quality and more convenient care,while also driving better decision making, identification of trends andpatterns, and ultimately giving us a chance to predict future events andoutcomes.
For example, exploiting theboom in AItechnology in the NHS could render up to 30 million outpatient appointmentscurrently taking place unnecessary,saving over £1bn to be reinvested elsewhere. And if you remain sceptical, thereare proof cases already — an AI system trialled at Moorfields Eye Hospital inNorth London found that it made the correct referral decision for over 50 eyediseases with 94% accuracy, matching the world’s best eye experts. Obviously, that’samazing, but I understand we need to take it with a pinch of salt — relativelyspeaking the eye and associated diseases are much clearer cut to determine agood course of action over other much more complex illnesses. But it’s a greatcase study all the same to showcase the power of AI in healthcare.
The second reason why myinterest continues to be piqued is because of the impact it can have on realpeople — families, partners, friends… everyone really. Think about a diseaselike Alzheimer’s. It changes the world for the families and close ones involvedwhen symptoms start setting in, but with the dawn of technology and itspractical use in the NHS, we could be on the road to better treatment and carethanks to predictive analytics. For instance, early symptoms — such as memoryimpairment — are often brushed off as tiredness or ‘just not being with ittoday’. That means that they may not be apparent in primary care visits orroutine checks, unless directly addressed and brought up by the patient. Butthat latter point is a stretch, trust me.
Machine learning on theother hand has the power to start changing the typical (late) diagnosis cycle,i.e. when you can no longer ignore the symptoms because they’re taking overyour life. Advancedpredictive analytics in machine learningcan perform retrospective and prospective analysis of data across a wealth ofan individual’s records, including clinical data in existing medical records,financial data and changing behaviours, demographic data from population healthrecords (spanning areas like pharmaceutical, environmental or clinicalvariables related to the onset of dementia), and beyond. Now, when we’retalking about real-life impact, an earlier diagnosis would have transformedthings for my family — my dad has Alzheimer’s and you’d be surprised howobsessed you become by tech in the NHS when you hear about the potential it hasto change the lifecycle of diagnosis, and ultimately lives.
In reality, althoughmachine learning and AI are quite a long way off in terms of every day usageand impact in the NHS, there’s so much technological change sweeping the UK’shealthcare industry that there’s plenty to be excited about. We Brits love to complainabout anything and everything — especially queues and ‘computer says no’moments in our GP surgeries. But we’ve already come along way. It’s not longbeen possible to make and cancel appointments online. Equally, we’re startingwell with the next generation now that parents are able to accesstheir children’s health recordthrough an online ‘red book’.
And as with any techrevolution or industry digitisation, there’s always an influx of hackers posingnew threats to hinder progress. The latest reported with the NHS — whichactually prompted me to consider writing this piece — details how hackerscould invade NHS systems and maliciously edit medical scans to ‘fake’ or hidecancer. I mean, needless to say —disgusting. But we’re all aware of these scams, like the WannaCry scandal froma couple of years ago. They’re arguably all a result of lack of propertechnology funding in the NHS to cover areas like cybersecurity, but we can’tlet these stumbling blocks get in the way. Yes, we must address new challengesas they arise, but equally there’s a big piece of education that needs to bedone on all of these areas to continue opening minds to new possibilities whenit comes to healthcare provision.
