Time for cautious optimism - Reflections from Rewired

In March we attended the Digital Health Rewired conference, one of the largest healthcare IT events in the UK calendar. With the recent announcement about the abolition of NHS England, we were uncertain as to what the mood would be amongst delegates, however, we were surprised to note a hopeful, though cautious optimism.

The NHS being the resilient organisation that it is, for many, the view was that reorganisations and upheavals happen, but there are still patients to treat, and things tend to carry on much as before. While a reduction in bureaucracy is to be welcomed, as ever, the devil will be in the detail, which has yet to be announced.

Manage the supply chain

One of the newer, increasingly important themes this year, was a realisation and acceptance that the supply chain is a key part of NHS infrastructure, and one that needs to be carefully managed. One of the presentations was a deep dive into the Synnovis pathology cyberattack which demonstrated just how serious the consequences can be with reportedly over 6,000 appointments and procedures cancelled in the UK in just five weeks. The transparency of the presentation was refreshing and the key lesson learnt from it was that it is critical to manage the supply chain. This includes controlling access that privileged third parties have to internal systems, something that we saw a lot of interest on the stand from organisations keen to hear more about our Privileged Access Management solutions.

Successful digital transformation is about people as well as technology

There were many examples of digital transformation, and it’s great to see this now really becoming business as usual. However, an underlying theme that the most successful use cases demonstrated was that you can’t just throw technology at a problem. You need to involve clinicians and start by looking at the issue you are trying to solve. Once the problem is identified, plan how best to tackle it – with input from clinicians - and then decide on the most suitable technology. Only by maximising the experience and deep knowledge of clinical workflows will digital transformation projects deliver successfully and help to avoid clinician burnout.

Mobile is taking off

The excitement around the capabilities of mobile continues to grow, and we received a lot of interest on the stand for all things mobile. In previous years where there was talk about how Trusts might benefit from the introduction of mobile, we are now seeing a step-change, as many projects are now underway. This is, in part, being driven by the need to realise more value from investment in EPR systems. In fact, we are seeing a drive towards mobile-first EPR, from existing vendors that are evolving their products to work on mobile devices, and from new challenger vendors that are starting with a mobile-first strategy.

One of the key talking points was that having deployed mobile devices, and integrated them with the EPR, clinicians were finding it very difficult to login in due to the small/non-existent keyboards. People were looking for a way to provide fast, secure login to mobile. Another realisation, having deployed mobile devices, some Trusts found that they are losing them at an alarming rate, because they have no good way of managing the devices. As well as making sure that the devices are kept securely within the hospital, it’s also important to ensure that they are charged, and reset after each user, removing any traces of previous sessions so that sensitive information isn’t leaked, and that they are ready for use. Our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Sean Kelly, gave a presentation and cited a hospital in that had a loss rate for mobile devices of 20%. When Imprivata Mobile Access Management was deployed that reduced to just 1%. Not only is that a huge cost reduction in terms of replacement devices, but it also ensures significantly less downtime (and irritation) for clinicians that can’t use devices because they have disappeared.

Our recent work at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare showcases how the use of Imprivata Mobile Device Access has transformed workflows on shared mobile devices to support care pathways. This has led to enthusiastic user adoption and increased compliance.

The message from the Government, including the findings from the Darzi Report, is that digital is a key priority for the NHS to become more efficient. However, digital isn’t just about investing in technology, it is about investing in people and skills as well, and we heard one story of a Trust that was losing a significant portion of its digital team due to budget reductions, which seems counter-intuitive.

National Access is modernising

One final point is the discussion around the development of new more secure ways of accessing national healthcare systems to protect sensitive patient information. This is becoming a more urgent topic as there are increasing numbers of cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure, of which healthcare organisations are a key part. Governments across Europe, including the UK, are introducing new requirements for accessing patient information. In Europe, NIS2 is driving behaviour at a country level, and in the UK the new Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR) act - the UK’s version of NIS2 - is due to enter Parliament later this year. In addition, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is advising organisations to move to their Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF).

In short, it will no longer be acceptable to access patient information with just a username and password, that can so easily be compromised. More secure systems will be required that will include strong authentication (multi-factor authentication). This of course brings the usual challenges for healthcare of balancing security with user experience. We had several visitors to the stand from Europe looking to see how the UK might be dealing with such requirements. Our recent webinar about National Access gives more information.

As ever, at Imprivata we are committed to working with our customers and partners for the betterment of healthcare.