For a long time, the exchange of this highly critical medical information has happened via paper-based forms. An ambulance crew would fill out a form and then pass it to the A&E team when they arrived at the hospital. This increasingly outdated system is prone to delays – the information cannot be transmitted in advance – thereby putting the patient’s health at further risk.

Today, these and many other processes can be digitalised and automated simply and effectively with no/low-code apps. Quick, easy to use and develop, these business apps are becoming the answer to healthcare’s constantly evolving requirements.

Together with our partner Akari Solutions, we recently developed an app for an NHS service specialised in treating strokes and managing stroke referrals. Using Microsoft Power Apps, Akari helped them build a solution that allows medical professionals to fill out digital forms with patient data. Then, they share it directly with the specialist centre. As a result, they can follow the patient wherever they are in their treatment journey.

This is only one of many examples of organisations turning to no/low-code applications and automation to manage current and future challenges. It’s also something that we have been actively engaged in over the past few years – helping the NHS improve operational efficiency and patient experience with simple yet cutting-edge technology. Here’s how we’re doing it.

The importance of delivering patient-focussed services

The past two years have been incredibly challenging for the UK healthcare sector, but they’ve also catalysed much needed digital transformation. Faced with new issues such as lockdowns and long-standing ones such as reduced capacity, an ageing population and increasing clinician burnout, the NHS has been forced to rethink many of the ways it operates.

To ensure that healthcare staff spend as much time as possible with their patients, we’ve seen the health service realise the importance of modernising processes, putting greater emphasis on efficiency and resource optimisation, as well as automating manual tasks.

Technology and patient engagement are – now more than ever – intrinsically tied. NHS organisations are increasingly turning to digital solutions to ensure continuity of care and a seamless experience for all.

This digital transformation entails both giving patients greater access to data, but also helping care teams make better use of their time. The importance of thorough record-keeping and the complexity of modern medicine puts pressure on the time that doctors can spend with their patients. In some parts of the NHS, this issue is exacerbated by outdated hardware and by non-interoperable systems. Sometimes, doctors have to log into 20 or more different systems per day. That leaves the workforce under even more pressure and paves the way for further inefficiencies.

Luckily, this is where no/low-code applications and automation technology can help.

Turning the tide with no/low code applications and automation platforms

With business applications like Microsoft’s Power Apps, NHS organisations can create highly cost-effective, quick and simple solutions that can cater to their many needs.

Using these applications, NHS staff can create bespoke solutions using low amounts of coding (or even no coding at all). They’re easy to build, manage and scale. In addition, the drag-and-drop functionalities and pre-built templates simplify the process. As a result, senior-level developers are no longer required to build high-quality, secure apps and automations.

That is game-changing. Not only does it enable faster time-to-deployment compared to traditional software developments. But it also allows people with different experiences to give their input when building the apps. This ultimately creates highly customised solutions that meet their specific needs.

Just imagine how transformational that can be for a healthcare service like the NHS, composed of hundreds of hospitals across the country. Indeed, many of the solutions and processes we’ve already created via Power Platform can be applied to all NHS Trusts.

From time-critical situations to day-to-day patient referral

Power Apps has a transformational potential in many areas of healthcare, particularly when it comes to resource management. For example, our partner ANS recently developed a Power App that helps NHS Trusts equip their frontline staff with the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) kits.

During the pandemic, this provisioning used to happen via a multitude of apps and websites. However, as soon as demand increased dramatically, inefficiencies in the system meant that some hospitals had too much PPE and others not enough. With their new Power App, Trusts can now keep track of PPE availability and order new supplies more effectively.

Another great example is the work we’ve carried out with the London Air Ambulance Charity. This is an advanced trauma team that looks after patients needing emergency medical treatment in the capital, and who are unlikely to survive the journey to hospital by road.

Here again, the team has started using Power Apps to build a range of checklist apps that replace their existing paper-based processes. They’re now also attaching QR codes to their medical bags, which can then be scanned to keep track of equipment.

Beyond emergency response, we’re seeing more and more organisations turn to business apps to automate all kinds of manual process. Our client, an NHS Foundation Trust, is a prime example.

As a mental health organisation, they sometimes refer their patients to other specialists. Previously, these referrals would happen through email or fax. Now, the organisation has created a primary to secondary care referral system – via Power Apps. This system allows them to share patient information in a seamless and secure way. All while reducing the opportunity for mistakes and delays to occur.

Building no/low code apps with Power Platform

After an incredibly challenging period, it’s time for healthcare to look ahead. The past two years have demonstrated the importance of having agile, fast and digital solutions that simplify operations for clinicians, giving them time back to spend with their patients.

So how can you get started with Microsoft Power Platform?

First off, make sure you know what you’re embarking on. We have a lot of resources – from self-paced learning courses to in-person digital events – designed to help you understand the benefits of no/low-code applications and automation platforms.

Once you’ve done all your research, ask yourself: What are some of the day-to-day processes or challenges that could be significantly improved through automation? Which of those are the most impactful and time-sensitive?

These two questions alone will likely already generate ideas for the first few apps and automations that you could create. For whatever comes next, we’re here to help.     

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About the author

Ana is Enterprise Sales Manager for Business Applications in the UK Public Sector. With more than 15 years’ experience in technology, she is a technologist, and evangelist with a specialism Healthcare and Education and is passionate about using technology for good.

The post How no/low code apps power patient engagement and operational efficiency appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

At Microsoft, we support Central Government organisations to enable employees to automate their workflows and business processes. We focus on everyone from civil servants on the frontline to technology experts. Our platform brings together Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Digital Process Automation (DPA) into a single cloud-based solution. As a result, it has recently been named a leader in the 2021 Forrester Wave for Robotic Process Automation.

The public sector needs to respond to new challenges such as increasing digital services to citizens and giving civil servants more resources on the frontline. Meanwhile, organisations face a skills shortage and increased demands to be more responsive. This is a great opportunity to look at RPA. But how can we ensure it delivers what you need?

Streamline operations with intelligent automation

RPA turns manual tasks into automated workflows by recording and playing back human-driven interaction with systems that don’t support API-based automation. What this means is you can automate processes and exchange data with legacy, on-premise software. What happens when you combine RPA with AI and digital process automation (automated workflows across cloud services)? You get an end-to-end solution. One that creates reusable workflows or processes you can use throughout the organisation on a secure platform. This reduces the time it takes to complete tasks and reduces paper-based processes. Additionally, it frees up employees to focus on strategic work or spend more time with citizens.

Microsoft Power Platform is an intuitive, extensible platform of low-code tools. It empowers all users to collaborate and build transformational solutions.

It has seamless integration to Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure and more than 400 native connectors. This means users can break up data silos, surface insights and create flexibility in business processes. You can build all these solutions in-house. As a result, you’re reducing your IT spend while giving yourself more capabilities.

For instance, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is responsible for monitoring the quality of care providers across England. To reduce manual paper processes, they built a low-code app with Power Apps for inspectors to use during site visits. They can complete reports quickly and easily onsite. In the meantime, that data flows back to connect to other inputs, such as online reviews, and social media. As a result, this delivers a more holistic view of care providers to CQC.

Gain new insights and reduce silos with intelligent automation

One of the benefits from having intelligent automation is the insights you can gain from it. As a result, you will be able to provide better services to citizens, improve employee wellbeing, and create new innovations.

To help decide which tasks to automate, we have introduced Process Advisor, a new process mining capability in Power Automate. It helps organisations better understand how their employees work. Process maps show the steps, repetitions, and provide out of the box analytics. Using these insights, organisations can decide which tasks to automate breaking down the barriers that might make it difficult for an organisation to identify where they might benefit the most from automation.

For example, Colchester Borough Council uses Microsoft to help deliver their services to 192,500 residents. They have used insights collected via Power BI to uncover areas of their Borough that need extra resources or information. With the help of Power Apps and Power Automate, staff can access, update, and share case and service information. They can do this securely via desktop and mobile devices in real-time.

Keeping your data safe

The public sector often deals with sensitive personal information. This means it’s important you ensure your technology is secure and compliant. Power Platform is built on Microsoft security standards. This includes the strong security and compliance features of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure Active Directory. Azure benefits from multi-layered security with integrated controls in hardware and firmware. Admins can monitor usage and business impact across the entire tenant. This helps securely deploy and support a low/no code platform. Power Platform monitoring tools help you gain full visibility of what employees are building. At the same time you have visibility over the use of these apps and flows. This is a key difference from other IT development projects. Traditionally, IT teams can struggle to gain a full understanding of usage and data access.

Additionally, there are many targeted security and governance capabilities. These enable environment and tenant-wide data exfiltration governance as well as fine-grained data loss prevention rules and support.

Empowering the public sector with intelligent automation

According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact of Power Automate, using an intelligent automation solution in the cloud can deliver a three-year return on investment of 199 percent. In order to face unprecedented challenges and changes that the UK is facing, we built an Intelligent Automation Blueprint to stimulate thought and provide ideas for central government.

The public sector needs to identify the opportunities for automation, as well as the technology to deliver it. Power Automate is helping reduce repetitive, manual, time-consuming tasks so civil servants can focus on strategic work. Ultimately, this is helping deliver better services to citizens.

Power Automate can deliver quick wins. But it should be considered a core part of a long-term strategy to ensure your organisation is well equipped to become digitally transformed.

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About the author

Andy has worked in delivering IT and Business solutions to Public Sector for the last 26 years. He has a passion for business improvement. Andy currently leads a team in Microsoft which provides cloud services to Central Government and Public Safety/National Security customers.

The post How the public sector can streamline operations and innovate with intelligent automation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

There’s never been a more exciting time to be in the healthcare industry. Every day a new research paper or hard-hitting story emerges about the power of AI and how it can help the NHS. However, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between the hype and reality and to understand exactly what AI means for healthcare specifically.

I want to share some of the incredible stories that I’ve encountered in my role to show you the impact AI is having on patients and employees across our NHS.

Intelligent Automation and Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) are already being used with dramatic effect by an NHS Trust. Put simply, this technology is the use of software with AI and machine learning capabilities to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform. These mundane tasks could include reading emails and patient forms, capturing information and errors, and pushing out tasks and data into other digital solutions. The automation of these tasks frees up workers to do more complex jobs that require uniquely human soft skills.

The NHS is task oriented, making RPA the perfect fit. More than 1.4 million patients are treated every 24 hours and nurses complete an average of 72.3 tasks per hour. According to the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), automation of tasks could save the NHS up to £12.5bn a year, the equivalent of 10% of its annual budget.

Thoughtonomy releasing time in the NHS

A great example of a task-heavy process in the NHS is the Electronic Referral Service (eRS), where a GP sends a patient referral into the secondary care system. The process around referrals at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) was both manual and laborious. Working in partnership with us, Microsoft Partner Thoughtonomy set about deploying a Virtual Workforce, using RPA and AI to automate the 2,000 referrals that typically came into the trust on a weekly basis.

Using the Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce® platform, three virtual workers at Ipswich Hospital actively monitor incoming referrals from the national GP Electronic Referral Service (eRS) in real-time, 24 hours a day. The virtual worker receives a referral, reads the content, and extracts the reason for the referral. It retrieves all relevant referral data and supporting clinical information, such as scan and blood test results from disparate sources, before merging everything into a single PDF document. This is then uploaded into the Trust’s administrative systems using highly secure smart card technology and the lead consultant is alerted that the referral is ready for review and grading.

The time to process the first stage of each GP referral was cut from 15-20 minutes to five minutes. Across 5 clinical specialities at ESNEFT virtual workers released 500 hours of time, reduced spend on agency staff, and improved job satisfaction. Within the first 3 months, more than 500 hours of medical secretaries’ time was freed up. The Trust estimates it will save £220,000 in associated direct costs by July 2019.

Time matters

Darren Atkins, Deputy Director of ICT at ESNEFT, said: “Our Trust has a philosophy that time matters. Thoughtonomy’s Intelligent Automation platform has released time for our medical secretaries. It’s giving them more time to speak with patients on the phone or solve problems for doctors, nurses, and other team members. Our staff have more time to make a difference, which improves our patients’ care and experience. This is how we make time matter.  When you look at the time and cost savings we’ve already banked within just one specific area of our operations, you start to get an idea of how intelligent automation can drive transformation on a huge scale within the NHS.”

“The messaging behind RPA and AI is critical. The way we deploy automation in practice is that it’s not a job destroyer; it’s a job enabler. We’re not automating workers. We’re automating work to free up time for people to be more productive or add value to their roles.”

Terry Walby, Thoughtonomy CEO

Thoughtonomy uses a range of Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services to deliver its RPA AI solution, including language, search, speech, and vision.

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Read the full ESNEFT case study for further details and results

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About the author

Kelly is the Healthcare Industry Manager at Microsoft UK, working with transformational digital partners and NHS customers to pilot solutions for collaborative working and empowering everyone to do more. She has 15 years’ experience working alongside the NHS, and is passionate about the power technology has to create positive change in healthcare.

The post AI in healthcare: enabling better patient care appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

I saw it in action at Future Decoded, standing side-by-side with our NHS customers. We share a common goal: putting the patient at the centre of what we do. We also want to empower employees to completely transform the way care is delivered and managed.

43 percent of healthcare employees are sceptical about the use of AI in healthcare. But used correctly, it can improve patient care, accessibility, and make it easier for employees to do their work.

“AI will have a big impact on healthcare, which affects everyone. Costs in the sector are growing, so the positive potential for introducing AI is huge,” says Chris Bishop, Microsoft Research Cambridge Labs Director. “There are so many opportunities and it doesn’t have to be big or complex; it can be as simple as gathering data.”

Start small

Implementing change in healthcare can seem quite daunting. Neil Sebire, Consultant Pathologist, Chief Research Information Officer and Director of DRIVE at Great Ormond Street Hospital sums it up pretty well: “You can’t shut the hospital to replace all your technology. It’s like saying to someone we need you to change the engine in this aeroplane, but we can’t land.”

To create this change, start small. How much time are your practitioners spending on backend work that can be automated?

At the Future Decoded AI in Healthcare panel, Thoughtonomy Head of Public Sector, Phil Sheen talked about automation. “Look at areas within the organisation that require little cognitive process,” he says. “It helps overcome cultural barriers and demystifies AI.”

Implementing automation at the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust showed how AI can support clinical and operational workers in healthcare. Within the first three months over 500 hours of medical securities’ time was saved, and they’re expected to save over £200,000 by July 2019.

AI for accessibility

AI also can aid accessibility in healthcare. The NHS has an accessibility standard built into it, which essentially says that all patients have the same right to access information that anyone else would have. Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services allow NHS Trusts to make their own data and patient information more accessible. Seeing AI, an app developed by Microsoft aids people who are vision impaired with their day-to-day lives.

Hector Minto, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft explained the relevance of this technology for healthcare. “Seeing AI could read prescription data for a patient, recognise carers, and read bar codes to identify the correct medication. All the individual channels used in the app are simply bits of code that can be used by developers to deliver accessible experiences for people with disabilities in healthcare. This is an invitation for people to look at AI and how they would like to use it to improve the patient experience, including employees with disabilities within the NHS.”

The power of data

Also at the AI in Healthcare panel were Emily Crossley, co-founder at Duchenne UK and Dr Elin Haf Davies, founder of Aparito.

“In today’s world we’re always talking about personalised medicine. But nobody is really talking about or investing in how we’re going to do the personalised monitoring that will allow us to actually get towards that,” explains Haf Davies.

They discussed their mission to have patients and their families use a phone-based app to provide information about themselves and when they take medication.

“Patient generated data is all the data a patient can share with us between hospital visits. We know that hospital-based appointments only capture 1-3 percent of a patient’s experience. Therefore, there’s a huge amount of data, experience, and a journey that patients go through that we don’t even capture. Our technology has been designed to fill that gap and develop what we call digital biomarkers.”

This data, along with data collected from wearables, will power clinical research and inform clinicians about what’s happening to the patient.

It’s clear to see how, when done right, AI can make positive changes to the way healthcare is provided.

Microsoft has been working with Leeds Teaching Hospitals on their bid to expand a digital pathology and AI programme across the North of England as an exemplar for the NHS. In the days following Future Decoded, we were delighted to find out that the bid was successful. As a result they’ve been awarded a £10.1m investment from UK Research and Innovation. The successful partnership bid embraces a network of nine NHS hospitals, seven universities, and 10 industry-leading medical technology companies, including Microsoft.

It will be fascinating to see this project unfold, and I look forward to revealing more moving forward.

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About the author

Kelly is the Healthcare Industry Manager at Microsoft UK, working with transformational digital partners and NHS customers to pilot solutions for collaborative working and empowering everyone to do more. She has 15 years’ experience working alongside the NHS, and is passionate about the power technology has to create positive change in healthcare.

The post Maximising the AI opportunity in healthcare appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.