What digitisation can do for us

Safeguarding the future of the NHS is no easy task. With greater financial pressures and an ageing population, assessing how the health service is equipped to navigate the challenges it faces continues to be a subject of intense scrutiny. Digital technology holds the key to overcoming many of these hurdles, and has the potential to revolutionise the way the NHS operates, equipping the service for an increasingly digital future. From the way patients engage with services at the point of use, to improving the efficiency and co-ordination of care, to empowering people to manage their own health and wellbeing, technology can enable the NHS to usher in a new era of personalised care and, ultimately, help us to live longer and healthier lives.

It’s clear the appetite for change is there — from both the NHS and the government — to take the steps towards this digital future. The launch of NHSX, the specialist joint unit bringing together policy-makers, health leaders and industry, is designed to break down silos and create a culture of innovation and technological experimentation across the health service, meaning that safe and tested technology can spread faster throughout the system. Focusing on the priorities outlined in the NHS Long-Term Plan, NHSX will advance how technology is utilised (through digital GP consultations and a digital ‘front door’ to the health service, for example) and explore new ways in which it can support primary care and preventative approaches.

Though commitment to these long-term goals is welcome in keeping the health service on the right track, there are groundbreaking technologies being developed, tested and implemented that are already changing the way we prevent, diagnose and treat some of the most challenging diseases.

Driving the diagnostic revolution

One of the most important areas where technology is already transforming the capabilities of the NHS is in diagnostics. This is particularly evident in cancer care. Recent developments in digital pathology showcase the opportunity to revolutionise precision in cancer diagnosis and drive early intervention. Digitisation of tissue slides that a pathologist would normally view using a microscope offers enormous opportunities for improved accuracy and collaboration in diagnosis. Operationally, preparing a tissue sample for review is a complex process with many steps. Digitisation can enable pathologists to organise and review numerous cases more quickly and with greater ease.

Our work with Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust highlights the benefits of blending this digital transformation with increased inter-operability through the creation of an advanced digital pathology network to help drive faster and more efficient diagnoses for patients [1]. Leveraging this network allows clinicians to collaborate remotely on patient cases, reducing delays in slide transport times, encouraging workflows that are more efficient across the sites, and enabling quicker access to specialist pathology opinions. From a patient perspective, this means more accurate and efficient diagnoses, and a pathway to more effective care.

Alongside pathology, the opportunity for technology to change the diagnostic progress within imaging is also presenting new opportunities for the NHS to improve productivity. For radiographers, the challenge presented by a huge demand on resources and the use of legacy equipment means X-ray experiences are often uncomfortable for patients and waiting times can be long.

Collaborating with the clinical team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, our new digital radiography system has been able to improve patient positioning and image quality. We have also enhanced the workflow of departments by helping to reduce the length of scanning, enabling them to see more patients per day, and shorten appointment and waiting times.

Improving the clinical and patient experience

Creating a thriving digital environment can vastly improve the patient experience. Delivering this requires relying on some of the NHS’s basic operational structures to use existing technologies more effectively. That means harnessing the data at a clinician’s disposal in a smarter way. The NHS has a unique knowledge base of longitudinal health data across all citizens. With the increase in digital medical and healthcare data records, the ability to glean insights from larger data sets will only continue to grow.

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) in this way will improve the ability of different health information systems and software applications — both within and across organisational boundaries — to ‘talk to each other’ and share information. This will allow AI solutions to better support clinicians by optimising how they work across planning, procedure times and diagnostics. In addition, the ability of AI to process large amounts of data supports departments in driving productivity, improving the use of existing resources and, ultimately, giving clinicians more time to provide essential care to patients who need it most.

Revolutionising NHS productivity does not rely solely on the shoulders of AI, however. Streamlining the patient pathway also requires ensuring examination procedures are as quick and efficient as they can be. For example, we recently announced the results of a three-month pilot alongside Cobalt Health, a medical charity and imaging centre, highlighting the benefits of a breakthrough acceleration Philips MRI technique that speeds up not only imaging sequences but also entire examinations. The solution allows radiographers and radiologists to accelerate imaging examinations while maintaining image quality. Over the trial period, Cobalt saw its diagnostic imaging services reduce their patient scan times by up to 50 per cent [2] in some imaging procedures. Most vitally for patients, this not only facilitates quicker scanning and reduced waiting time, but also contributes to a more comfortable experience, leading to more precise and positive outcomes and in some cases a quicker route to diagnosis.

While technology holds the key to resolving some of the challenges the NHS faces both now and in the future, harnessing this technology effectively also requires a deep understanding of the clinical, operational and personal contexts in which such methods are used.

At Philips, we are working to bring the best possible outcomes to patients, and we believe in the importance of driving the innovation that will ultimately save and improve lives. It is vital that to do this, we work collaboratively as an industry towards this goal, to enable the adoption and integration of the most effective and tested technology into the NHS.