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Category: Healthtech

Our AI impact: waiting list monitoring and management

Posted on by Michael Phillips

This is the first in a series of blogs around PRO-MAPP’s (and the wider healthcare industry’s) actionable uses of AI. You can find the introductory background article here.

Where waiting list management has halted

Most of us have been patients in the hospital waiting room. Whether sitting directly in the lounge for emergency services or being in the backlog for a more intense planned operation, a lot of us unfortunately have tales to tell about waiting times. Some can be horror stories.

In the UK, the National Health Service has carried a huge load; a mountain of intensive human and material resource usage on both critical and non-critical patients. The average GP surgery has more than 2000 registered patients, where any tailored assessments have to account for tests, evaluations, hospital space, and rehabilitation. Orthopaedics are commonly slow due to infamous multiple assessments for a patient’s surgery validity, implant costs and staff training. So much so that the speciality comprises the nation’s longests lists. Hip and knee replacement costs 1.5% of the NHS’ entire budget. There’s also spinal surgery or life-altering trauma cases to think about.

Restricting waiting list bottlenecks and ensuring every urgent matter gets prioritised calls for operational efficiency in triage – basing assessment or event treatment on how urgent a matter is. This has a positive domino effect on secondary or tertiary care freeing up resources for trauma and orthopaedic surgery. Understanding what their issue or condition is, where they should go and who they should see takes time to guarantee that every need is met. Managing such a data-heavy task is where artificial intelligence tools can step in.

Gaining assessments in real-time

Monitoring patients takes into account their health records, past surgeries or assessments, tests, need for surgery, and ideal pathways (what preferred service they expect during their health journey). It’s not that hospitals do not have this data to hand, but legacy technology has been tough to maintain – growing monolithic structures that lose or silo patient data, and misallocate resources or operational plans to staff. There are also inconsistencies between referrals at regional practices, as outlined by the NHS’ Getting It Right First Time initiative.

Managing these queues becomes unfocused and assessing-low risk cases amasses delays that can have a drastic effect on patients: seeking private service, skipping care altogether, depending on opiates to deal with pain, and perhaps worsening their symptoms.

One true supportive behaviour of AI is its swift data-gathering techniques. Any inputs – including patient questionnaires or assessment or surgery notes – can be collated immediately into digitised databases that are simple to find, amend and share. This can flag critical patients to ensure they’re fast-tracked through workflows that can be easily communicated to both clinicians, support staff and patients themselves. In that regard, AI’s unification of data not only supports risk assessment for triage, but boosts satisfaction in exemplary patient outcomes.

AI-driven waiting list monitoring and management has already reaped rewards in making data-backed decisions in a fraction of human time. In Scotland in 2019, automated AI triage was compared to clinician’s valued opinion on referrals for gastroenterology with positive results, including facilitated communication between primary and secondary care. AI triage has also seen a 77.1% acceptance rate among researched medical staff in China.

In trauma cases where fractures or other serious injuries require immediate surgery, these reactive demands require AI to surface pathway data for smooth scheduling and resource allocation for planned elective surgery, even at short notice.

PRO-MAPP’s AI journey

GIRFT is prioritising standardisation as a way to halt unnecessary delays, where integrating this technology on a nationwide scale lies with healthcare providers supported by AI automations, including here at PRO-MAPP:

  • The platform utilises AI for digital scheduling; collating results from patient intake forms to craft an assessment system for nursing staff to coordinate paths for surgery.
  • AI underlines automated patient-reported outcomes, satisfaction surveys, and operative data reporting without the need for dictation.
  • Assessment for surgical readiness can be decreased from around half an hour to 5 minutes, where operative reports can be billed on the same day as service.
  • Through waiting list monitoring and management, we target to reduce lengths of stay for prehabilitation, as well as wasted secondary care appointments, looking to save the NHS over £1.5 million and counting.

Speeding up triage through digital AI tools is not just down to switching telephone questionnaires to online consultations through apps. It’s about putting data input into the patients’ hands, removing the need for unnecessary in-person checks with doctors and prioritising critical patients for surgery or rehabilitation.

Waiting lists are the major operational dilemmas for the NHS – where AI’s help revolves around identifying critical clients and reducing resources of staff costs that take away from efficient orthopaedic surgeries. When those are saved, staff training classes and patient accommodations can be met more suitably which, when rolled out to other institutions, can standardise data collection and usage and reduce the burden of queues all around the nation.

Next in the series, we’ll be delving into AI’s personalisation capabilities to streamline patient pathways. If you’d like to know more about how AI drives our waiting list monitoring and management, contact us today!

A week with Faith In Practice and Hope in Motion surgical teams in Guatemala

Posted on by Elliot Burr

March 1st – 8th 2025, by Bill Hartman

We’ve been working with NGO Faith In Practice to use our award winning medtech platform to develop a bespoke patient record service supporting the patient pathway from initial presenting in clinic right through to surgery and rehab. This new service called ‘Insight’ revolutionises remote clinic levels where groups of healthcare providers may see over 1,000 patients per week. Recently I attended a surgical trip to Antigua Guatemala to assist and see first-hand their screening and scheduling processes using the PRO-MAPP platform.

Most patients we see do not need extended care, however a subset may be recommended for surgical evaluation. Of those evaluations, some are suitable for orthopedic joint replacement or major orthopedic reconstructive surgery. The vision of Insight is to provide records of the remote clinics and organize patient screening for surgical evaluation, the portability of x-ray images, details of surgical intervention, post-surgical follow-ups and patient flagging if further surgery screening is necessary.

During the week I wanted to determine how the current Insight system works to capture operative details, as well as how the technology can further be utilized to create efficient, organized, and prioritized surgical plans. I worked alongside the Hope In Motion team – over 50 people including surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, scrub techs, physical therapists, implant and instrument representatives, and even a specialist to oversee central processing, cleaning and sterilization.

Before Insight, patients arrived at the Obras (the hospital in Antigua) and were served on a first-come-first-served basis. Surgical schedules were filled, but perhaps not with the highest priority patients first. In one instance I witnessed a young rheumatoid arthritis patient who had fused hip joints and could barely walk, but by the time the team evaluated her condition, the surgery schedule was full. Had she been identified as a high priority patient in a remote screening process prior to the trip, her care could have begun that week. As it turned out, she must wait until the next surgical team arrives in a month.

PRO-MAPP and Insight also serve to follow patients and alert the following teams to further needs. I witnessed the right knee replacement for a male patient with severely varus legs, what we may refer to as bow-legged, while his left knee surgery was staged for a later trip. This staging is very important; the patient will do well with one surgery, yet much better when both knees are replaced, where the ability to track, communicate, and plan between surgical teams can facilitate this level of bilateral staged care.

The effect these surgical trips have on needy patients is profound to say the least. It was not uncommon for patients to travel several hours – and some up to 17 hours– hoping to see a doctor without truly knowing so until they are seen on Sunday. As the team arrived for triage on day one and walked past the queue of patients, the hope in their eyes was undeniable. Consequently, their level of gratitude following surgery is nearly impossible to describe. The patients interacted with the team, literally saying “God Bless You” as if a true miracle was bestowed upon them. We were all incredibly impressed with the bravery and tenacity shown by these patients, and their willingness to listen to post-op instructions and work with physical therapy.

The Hope In Motion and Faith In Practice collaboration had created an environment where 92 patients were operated on in 4 days, performing 55 total knee replacements, 16 total hip replacements, and 21 foot and ankle procedures. It was only later that I learned everyone at Hope in Motion had been asked to participate. In other words, the team is not voluntary, but by invitation only. This diligence creates a vastly experienced collective working towards the same goal and providing as much medical care as possible, all in a very short window of time in unfamiliar working conditions.

Not only was it humbling to see Insight becoming an integral tool to create more efficiency, organization, and planning, but in the hands of these excellent volunteers and organisations, it’s helping to provide the best patient care ever developed for underserved nations.

With further surgical trips planned, all of us are anticipating even greater strides in remote orthopedic care, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

4 key healthtech areas PRO-MAPP have impacted through AI

Posted on by Michael Phillips

Healthcare systems are consistently under strain, and alleviating cost and resource pressures comes down to efficiency. Improving those workloads has to take into account every single key worker in the system – doctors, nurses, surgeons, and administrative staff in both primary and secondary settings – which is a conundrum better solved through a commodity helping operations in many sectors: data.

Data is everywhere. But its abstract form can be confounding, especially when advanced data usage nowadays brings artificial intelligence into the conversation. If we can even cast our minds back to the pre-AI age, ‘Expert System’ was a similar concept used to code rules (essentially cloning senior staff’s expertise and judgements) which, when applied to a given scenario, would aim to give medical staff repeatable support and success in decision making

As is typical of any new digital invention in fashion-led IT, AI carries the paradox of being an exceptional helper that requires a great deal of explanation to healthcare staff and patients. Its use for the everyday is more commonplace than ever, but most patients may still be put off by receiving recommended treatment from an output-generation machine.

The key idea to reinforce is that AI is a “supporting tool”, not a replacement for the services of expertly-trained doctors, or conscientious experiences carried out by healthcare staff. What we’ve read about AI’s most actionable utility – trawling through millions of datasets in seconds, such as patient records or imagery – can collect relevant high-quality insights and efficacies helping clinical decision-making to better satisfactory patient pathways and outcomes.

From the health professionals’ side, we see many FAQs around the technology and its effects on operational efficiency:

  • Can we use AI enabled solutions safely with our patients and staff?
  • What’s the impact of costs, implementation and (ultimately) patient outcome?
  • How complicated is this to set up, and how quickly do we see the benefits?

These are all valid, and can be answered from PRO-MAPP’s two years of practical usage. When combined with our proven health platform, safe AI can enhance key functions to collect the right data at the right time and provide effective insights and actions for ‘next steps’; rapidly delivering solutions covering monitoring, same-day pre-assessment, and reducing large waiting lists without impacting timelines, IT resources or increasing costs.

We’ve had independent confirmation from the positive impact AI can have, and we’ll be sharing a series of case studies and key learning around how we’ve utilised AI solutions within a NHS environment, including:

Waiting list monitoring and management

Orthopaedics are the NHS’ hardest hit waiting lists for knee or hip replacement surgery. Restricting bottlenecks and ensuring every urgent matter gets prioritised calls for AI-backed operational efficiency in triage. Our targets to reduce lengths of stay for prehabilitation, as well as wasted secondary care appointments, look to save the NHS over £1.5 million and counting.

Personalised pathways

Understanding every care requirement and preference helps tailor experiences to every patient. AI steps in to collect self-reported surveys, medical histories, and grant post-assessment recommendations, where we’ve seen 100% of patients being ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with their new pathways.

Same day pre-assessment

Re-testing and progressive ailments are just two side-effects of fractured pre-assessments affected by the weight of backlogs involving crucial and less-crucial appointments. Streamlining necessary in-person appointments is possible – PRO-MAPP has helped decrease them by 75%, while consultants can see up to three patients in the same time as previous pathways to also save up to 75% in clinical resources.

Additionally, our Pre-Assessment Clinical Triage (PACT) programme with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) helped raise identification of surgery-ready patients from 28% to 77%.

Future areas of benefit

Analysis by York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) has spotted how annual costs per patient can be reduced by £749, and the NHS’ future relies on a larger AI rollout for these personalised, patient-centric care across the nation. Predictive analytics can determine critical patients and identify patterns in nationwide databases: improving care pathways without the operational hurdles of legacy healthcare systems.

We’re always striving at PRO-MAPP to rise to the ‘data challenge’ and improve our platform using this revolutionary technology. Check back soon to see our AI past, present and future across these 4 critical areas.

Swansea Bay UHB’s collaboration with PRO-MAPP wins Technology and Digital Impact Award

Posted on by Michael Phillips

We’re delighted to see our collaboration with Swansea Bay University Health Board recognised for pioneering health technology in the field of pre-operative assessments in Wales. The team took home the Technology and Digital Impact award category at MediWales Innovation Awards, rewarding the efforts of Swansea Bay UHB and PRO-MAPP’s Orthopaedic Waiting List Initiative (OWLi). 

This brief video outlines the basis of the OWLi project, and how it relates to the award nomination. Here’s more background details about our partnership, and why we’re aiming to better pathways for orthopaedic care in Wales and beyond with our digital platform.

Credit: M Horwood / MediWales

Our collaborative approach

Planned care waiting lists have grown exponentially since the covid-19 pandemic – none more so that for trauma and orthopaedics. When patients stay on waiting lists longer, their health, and especially mobility with T&O conditions, declines and the lives of their families can be impacted. The cost on primary services may also increase, where the health economics has a direct impact on those patients being fit for the planned procedure.

To remedy this heavy operational workload on healthcare staff (and therefore speedy up pathways for patients), digital platforms are better using data to fast track those most in need of surgery, and to tailor prehabilitation support for every patient. 

Monitoring patient health prior to surgery is key and undertaken by Swansea Bay UHB’s orthopaedics team, in collaboration with PRO-MAPP’s customisable digital solution. With the interactive platform, patients in waiting lists are able to self-report their health symptoms. With AI technology, the solution is able to profile then tailor pre-habilitation support services for patients, and recognises those with underlying health conditions that may require further treatment elsewhere. This ongoing process of monitoring and management assists both the patient and the Health Board/Trust, as patients can ensure that they are ready for their procedure, which has a positive mental impact and sets their expectations.

The results to date

The platform has been delivering for over two years where more than 3500 patients have been onboarded to benefit from its data-led insights. Already, those with significant conditions have been identified and supported to improve their health and halt the possibility of failed pre-operative assessments. 

Over 200 patients identified as having a significantly high body mass index (BMI) have been triaged to specialist Prehabilitation AHP weight management services. 200 smokers have been flagged and referred to shared cessation support. More than 400 patients with pre-existing health conditions requiring new blood tests were alerted to update them prior to pre assessment, where these patients would have attended and failed pre-operative assessment otherwise. The clear benefits of this intelligent approach to waiting list management means that the platform and process is being looked at for other specialities

Charting our next steps

It is critical in a digital strategy to leverage and maximise the utility of the data, and the self-reported data within OWLi is checked regularly to enhance profiling and the accuracy of the analysis. 

OWLi has collated complex comorbidity and anaesthesia data on patients, and is now delivering these results in the correct format (including RAG – Red, Amber and Green) to each team to review patients and their planned care accordingly. The countdown to pre-assessment is vital in planning RAG clinics to maximise patient flow and saving costs.

Working with Planned Care teams is also paramount to update waiting lists with relevant information, including care changes or whether a procedure was carried out privately. PRO-MAPP’s platform has the ability to adapt quickly, and deliver these beneficial services to teams that can ensure each patient is as fit and prepared for their procedure as possible. 

About MediWales

The MediWales Innovation Awards are regional and divided into Industry Awards and Health Awards, open to applications from companies operating in (or with a footprint in) Wales.

2024 saw its nineteenth edition. Learn more about all of the category winners on the MediWales website.

 

How data-driven solutions can empower remote healthcare NGOs

Posted on by Michael Phillips

Non-governmental organisations (NGO) are mostly associated with social or humanitarian work, including a range of worldwide groups focused on the health and wellbeing of populations on the fringe of national health services. All of these charitable groups, health NGO or not, face tough conditions, and rely on trained voluntary workers and monetary support as just two factors to carry out their respective causes. Add in healthcare’s notoriously tricky, cumbersome systems and advanced medical specialisms, and the job for these remarkable organisations is made evermore difficult.

Alongside the goodwill of generous donations, technological advancements are making exponential differences to ways in which healthcare NGOs can treat underserved patients, even in the globe’s more remote regions. When medical and resources are tight, operational innovation becomes key. But healthtech has even greater knock-on effects in transforming the ways volunteers, medical professionals and patients interact with each other throughout their clinical paths.

The unique problems for remote healthcare

Even the most trusted health systems in developed countries struggle with the pressures of growing populations and modern ailments. If you transfer these troubles to regions without skilled doctors, or even a hospital or small surgery, and healthcare NGOs’ importance is obvious. Like many NGOs, there’s a high level of cultural and social understanding they share with local communities, some of which may be less trusting in doctors, or feel there’s bias against those that can afford their treatment and those that can not. 

A healthcare system should, in a perfect world, give equal quality of care to every patient and prioritise those most in need. Not all providers can achieve this in less economical places, however. NGOs in the space do excellent work in providing as much special care as they can and educate local staff that can build rapport with patients. But unlike non-health-related NGOs, there’s a problem in being able to provide regular health check-ups with the same doctors and nurses, and to cross-reference health records (if any) with existing systems. Despite providing a bridge between patients and access to healthcare materials, NGOs can face difficult relationships with these healthcare facilities already in place.

This is why grassroots health NGOs, with enough economic backing and government agency support at their areas of work, must aim to put training procedures in place to improve preventative healthcare solutions for patients until public or private providers can better serve their needs.

From access to tracked pathways

Accessibility is the first hurdle to anyone seeking healthcare, which NGOs strive to provide at the basic level. But their continued success relies on sustaining projects (even with the rising cost of training, delivery, and infrastructure). There’s no immediate magic wand to provide everyone with more stable and regular healthcare, yet through partnerships with research institutions and technological partners, a focused grouped effort goes some way in optimising the clinical paths that work best – without wasting medical resources or the valuable time of voluntary staff. 

For one, technology is an outstanding educational tool. Through sharing audio and video training, it’s quicker to raise awareness about ailments, or to onboard local professionals or staff members that can learn the ins-and-outs of their specific roles for efficient procedural workflows at regional or pop-up surgeries. The same applies to support video calls between doctors and patients, where mobile or tablet is applicable, reducing queues of in-person appointments. WhatsApp is becoming an increasingly popular tool for reaching patients in remote areas, who are able to stay updated with doctors that can monitor their condition from wherever they are based.

When documentation is captured digitally, there’s consistency across care teams to track patient pathways – something we’ve experienced working with NGO Faith In Practice in Guatemala. This is why data is becoming such a key asset for remote health work; going beyond areas where paperwork is the only log for any health records, collecting real-time data on appointments or procedural notes is paramount to provide feedback, referrals, and to help each patient understand the next steps required. Ironing out these operations makes it more affordable to allocate fees to host clinics in remote areas, and helps account for only the materials needed with far less repeated manual labour, too.

A brighter future

Beyond this, data has the power to change healthcare systems outside of their individual surgeries. Collecting patient data builds up a reliable picture of the work of health NGOs’ in giving primary care, providing ample kudos to these services when they search for potential funding to better their healthcare programmes, a region’s infrastructure, or even to influence policymakers.

Maintaining health records provides better trust and communication between surgeries and patients for any pathway, no matter where they are in the world. Healthtech is certainly a cost-effective and vital lifeline to do just this, strengthening the great work health NGOs complete every hour, every day.

Personalised Patient Pathways: going beyond operational healthcare challenges

Posted on by Mash Patel

Healthcare systems worldwide are under increasing pressure to deliver improved patient outcomes while under strictly managed budgets. It takes innovative steps to maintain this balance, but emerging solutions are making the necessary leaps to move the industry forward.

PRO-MAPP stands out in this regard as a software platform specifically designed to change the game for patient care delivery. From personalising individual care plans, to driving efficiency and lowering costs for clinicians, here are five compelling reasons for why PRO-MAPP is revolutionising the healthcare sector through smart technology.

1. Addressing healthcare challenges

The hurdles faced by healthcare providers are escalating. Under the stress of rising costs, patients have high expectations in regards to their duty of care, and managing new systems to solve operational problems (including streamlining workflows and improving patient outcomes) can be convoluted. Traditional approaches to care delivery often lack the flexibility and precision needed to address the diverse needs of patients effectively.

Instead, PRO-MAPP offers a complete solution that enables healthcare professionals to design and implement bespoke patient pathways that are tailored to individual clinical needs, maintaining a consistently high level of detail for every case.

2. Data-centric decisions

All patient pathways are different and healthcare providers must juggle various clinical scenarios, ranging from routine procedures to complex treatments. There’s only so much oversight and multi-tasking a human can handle in a fast-paced environment.

But by leveraging advanced algorithms and data analytics, PRO-MAPP generates customised care plans that take into account patient demographics, medical history, and their healthcare preferences. With a personalised approach, each patient is ensured that their specific requirements are met through their care path and increasing satisfaction.

3. Enhancing clinical efficiencies

Healthcare providers are tasked with a range of operational considerations that can affect the efficiency of end-to-end clinical workflows. These can include care coordination, task assignment, and resource allocation across whole clinical teams, where collaboration is key to ensuring a streamline care journey for every patient.

Automating these administrative tasks allows healthcare teams to focus on what matters – improving the patient experience – by reducing unnecessary delays, distributing resources accordingly and increasing productivity overall. Going a step beyond, real-time tracking and monitoring features also allow clinicians to monitor patient progress and identify potential bottlenecks for them to proactively intervene when necessary.

4. Measurable cost reductions

In addition to improving patient outcomes and clinical efficiencies, healthcare organisations are under scrutiny to deliver tangible cost savings in the current financial landscape. Optimising many of the care delivery processes above helps to reduce any unnecessary variations in practice and utilises care givers and materials more effectively. This has a direct knock-on effect to lowering costs.

Studies have shown that institutions using PRO-MAPP experience measurable reductions in operational expenses, including shorter lengths of stay, fewer readmissions, and lower medication errors. Each of these cost savings translate into significant financial benefits for healthcare providers and contribute to long-term sustainability and profitability.

5. Embracing advanced IT systems

The healthcare industry has a history of investing billions in monolithic IT systems with limited returns on investment which cannot adhere to the needs of personalised care options easily. Traditional IT implementations require lengthy customisation and integration processes, ultimately delaying the all-important provision of healthcare.

A departure from this trend looks to offer a solution that is both cost-effective and a value-driver from day one. These new-look platforms, including PRO-MAPP, can not only be rapidly deployed, but scaled to meet the evolving needs of healthcare organisations over time. An intuitive interface and user-friendly design also minimises the need for extensive training, ensuring adoption is rapidly accepted among clinical staff.

All healthcare providers should seek to enhance patient care, streamline clinical operations, and achieve cost efficiencies, especially as it’s becoming evermore possible using technological breakthroughs specifically designed for the industry. By enabling personalised patient pathways, enhancing clinical efficiencies, and delivering measurable cost reductions, PRO-MAPP emerges as a transformative solution for modern healthcare delivery – not only a strategic decision to improve patient outcomes – but also as a significant step to provide long-term success and sustainability for healthcare organisations.

To find out more about PRO-MAPP’s solution for personalised patient pathways, get in touch with our team today.

Success by degrees: how to overhaul inefficient healthcare with Small IT

Posted on by Michael Phillips

In the tricky pursuit for next-generation healthcare technology, the NHS has often found itself entangled in the complexities of ‘Big IT’ programs. For decades, these large-scale nationwide programs, often championed by consulting giants, promised transformation but delivered little more than frustration and inefficiency. The time has come to pivot towards a new, and arguably better, notion: Small IT.

The allure of Big IT solutions, with their expansive scope and proposals of comprehensive integration, once held sway over healthcare decision makers. But bloated budgets, delayed timelines, and systems plagued by interoperability issues have become all too familiar hallmarks of these grand endeavours.

For the NHS, another fundamental flaw of Big IT initiatives lies in their top-down approach. These monolithic projects often attempt to impose standardised solutions across a diverse landscape of healthcare providers, disregarding the bespoke challenges and workflows of individual institutions. This ‘one size fits all’ mentality inevitably leads to adaptation struggles and, ultimately, suboptimal outcomes.

Adjusting to a nimbler evidence-based approach and building from proven localised successes allows for innovators to partner with the so-called integration giants in subsequent phases of rollout. The tail stops wagging the dog. Innovators lead, partnering with scale-out enablers at the right time and only after ROI proof-points have been demonstrated. This is where Small IT comes in.

The ethos of Small IT centres on leveraging modern technology stacks to empower innovators to tailor solutions to the specific needs of healthcare providers and patients alike. It marks a tactical pivot towards agile solutions delivered by passionate teams with a focus on both service and profitability.
Small IT also thrives on collaboration and customisation. By working closely with healthcare stakeholders, operations heads can gain a deep understanding of their needs and pain points, crafting solutions that seamlessly integrate into existing workflows while addressing specific challenges head on. This bottom-up approach fosters a sense of ownership and engagement among end users, driving adoption and ensuring that technology truly enhances, rather than hinders, the delivery of care.

The agility inherent in Small IT allows for rapid iterations according to evolving healthcare requirements and emerging technologies. Rather than being shackled to outdated systems and cumbersome bureaucracies, healthcare organisations can embrace change as an opportunity for growth and improvement. Dynamic responsiveness is crucial in an industry that changes as rapidly as healthcare, where the ability to swiftly respond to new challenges (spikes in patient admissions and evolving ailments, for example) can mark the difference between success and stagnation.

Critics of the Small IT approach may argue that it lacks the scale and robustness of Big IT solutions. But the goal is not to build massive systems that attempt to solve every problem under the sun, rather to create flexible, modular solutions that can be easily modified and scaled as needed. Small IT embraces the concept that solutions can’t do it all, yet are pragmatic, cost-effective, and, most importantly, deliver tangible value to end-users.

Plus the rise of modern tech stacks – cloud computing, microservices architecture, and open-source software – has democratised access to powerful tools and platforms for all Small IT users who can rapidly prototype and deploy solutions with minimal upfront investment. It levels the playing field and empowers a new age of healthcare entrepreneurs.

The era of Big IT dominance in healthcare is coming to an end. Decades of failed initiatives and wasted resources have demonstrated the limitations of top-down, holistic approaches. Software development efficiencies only add to the case. It is time to embrace Small IT’s agility, collaboration and customisation to revolutionise the delivery of care throughout the NHS.

By harnessing the creativity and passion of smaller IT teams, we can finally realise the promise of technology to improve patient outcomes, enhance clinician satisfaction, and drive efficiency throughout the healthcare system: a fundamental change meaningful to us all.