Innovation vs insight: how can we help the NHS?

In a recent webinar we hosted on ‘HealthTech innovations and how these can help the NHS’, two things became apparent: 1) the exciting growth of new technologies that can greatly help the NHS, and 2) the need for user insight to underpin the rollout of many of these, in order to make sure that they’re effective (rather than just exciting).?

The NHS is at breaking point and in need of real support after the effects of COVID and government cuts. However, within this need there is a real opportunity to use new solutions effectively to reduce the burden on the NHS. For example, COVID has now made remote self-testing mainstream, while smartphone apps allow us to monitor our health and now offer remote diagnostic capabilities too.??

Therefore there is real hope for the NHS (and global healthcare systems) to take advantage of emerging digital and HealthTech solutions, but these must always put users first. They have to be primary research and insight-led, based on user needs and behaviours, in order to be effective and helpful to the NHS.

Here are some of the exciting innovations that were discussed, followed by how and why we need to ensure that these kinds of innovations are user-centred in their application and service design.?

Remote patient monitoring and virtual care

This is helping to relieve pressure on the NHS. Companies are supporting patients throughout their journey with cancer and other diseases and conditions. This sort of support can become embedded as a hybrid pathway to combine hands-on care with effective virtual support.

Smartphone diagnosis?

Healthy.io and Hero Health are leveraging the power of sensors and smartphone lenses to help to remotely access conditions and help to diagnose. Healthy.io for example offers digital wound analysis, which can support the NHS.?

Lateral flow lipid tests

COVID created great progress in the proliferation of lateral flow tests, which can now be used for lipid tests, which can support cardiovascular analysis to diagnose earlier and better on a national level. With cardiovascular disease being a huge area of need for the NHS.??

Liquid biopsies to diagnose cancers

Companies such as Grail are offering liquid biopsies, a multi-cancer early detection test that can detect over 50 types of cancer (most of which lack recommended screening within healthcare systems), meaning they can be identified early and cured or treated. This technology is now being trialled by the NHS and could be transformative.??

Computer vision to validate scans

In the short term AI & ML using computer vision can be used to analyse scans (CT, MRI, X-ray etc.), to validate or flag a diagnosis made by a doctor. Validating scans should reduce the need for repeat appointments and scans carried out, which could be of great benefit to the NHS.?

Machine learning to offer predictive analytics

In the longer term, AI & ML can go from diagnostics to prognostics, using electronic health records (EHRs), lipid profiles, HP1 series results for diabetic patients etc., to look at the likelihood of developing a disease in an individual or within population groups. Age, gender, ethnicity, location and other data sets can be analysed to predict the likelihood of future diseases, which would allow the NHS to prepare for future needs.

Predictive analytics could also help us as individuals to look after our health better, to clarify the likelihood of possible future issues, in a given timeframe, and indicate the steps we need to take in our lifestyle in order to reduce those future risks. However, the development of these services all require more than innovation…

Service design is crucial

The things listed above are part of the future of healthcare, and they largely tie into self-serve solutions in the shorter-term, with preventative health and predictive capabilities going forward. However for all of these solutions service design is crucial. Wherever there is handover between remote and in person, a wider context, and the needs of users to be considered.?

Service design is surprisingly nascent within HealthTech and healthcare. Remote solutions suggest a single touchpoint, but there is a real need to understand problems as a whole, in order to create end-to-end solutions for them.

Understand the user first

Service design looks to understand user’s real-world needs and perspectives, to build for them, and to take into account the whole customer journey. To see what is needed from start to end, and to work to deliver that full service, for all users, rather than supply a product that does one thing in isolation.?

Avoid risk

Based on discovery work we did for the new NHS National Hepatitis C Testing Portal, we saw that in the development of services there are often risky assumptions made, such as thinking all target user groups will have adequate digital access and literacy. Thus primary research with users and a discovery-led approach allows us to dispel those myths and build a service that works for all user groups. (In this case creating an NHS branded service to build trust, simplifying access drastically, and normalising language for all users, in order to be effective for all users.)?

Save time and money

Qualitative research that works to understand the problems and perceptions at play, in order to unearth insights that create user-centred solutions, means that companies and organisations build what users actually need. This (perhaps conversely) often means that less features are required, in order for the service to be straightforward, which then reduces development costs, and maintenance costs. Therefore beginning with insight can often save a great deal of time and money.

Service design helps to address the hard to reach

Many health issues that create significant cost to the NHS are seen in hard to reach groups. It’s only by working with these groups to understand their barriers and issues that we can create useful services that these groups will trust and use. This was seen in our research for hepatitis C elimination for the UK, to be able to address the needs of people who inject drugs (PWID) for example, and understand the service that they require, in order for the service to work effectively for all target user groups.?

Sense and sensibility?

Being user-centred and insight-led will also help us to help patients and users with how they understand and respond to their data and results. In terms of identifying early-stage cancers, or predicting the likelihood of future diseases, there has to be a huge amount of empathy. We have to understand how patients and users will respond to such information, and what they need throughout the process and at each step, in order to create a service that supports them.?

HealthTech innovations on the horizon will greatly help the NHS. However, they don’t cure conditions and diseases, instead they help us to address them. In order for this to be useful we need to design and build services that deal with the wider context of these human scenarios, and the end-to-end needs that fit around them.?

Or in other words, we will always need real patient and user insight to make sure we use new innovations in effective ways that will truly help them and truly help the NHS.?

Note, you can watch HealthTech Innovations & Opportunities for the NHS webinar here.