Below, you’ll find a selection of case studies. Not the entirety of my professional career, but a sufficiently broad blend to provide you with a starting point for a conversation to discover what you are looking to achieve and how I can perhaps help you get there.
1: REGIONAL PUBLIC WIFI INNOVATION
Issue: Free WiFi is available in every NHS site in England, but it’s use is variable and, for the investment made, there is no direct service or proven business benefit.
Solution: Partnering with a leading supplier of enhanced public WiFi and an approved digital content provider, WiFi registration screens in GP surgeries across East Devon presented visitors with personalised public health campaign video content.
Impact: Within the first month, over 1,500 visitors were consuming public health and self-care content across the WiFi service. Within three months, visits were up to 2,200 with over 80% unique visitors consuming a total of 90 hours of content.
The project is now understood to be considered for scaled rolled out across all of Devon GP practices in 2019/20.
2: REGIONAL AIR QUALITY FOR WELL-BEING
Issue: Poor air quality affects the lives of specific age groups and people with poor health. Neither the public nor the NHS understand how to mitigate its effect on health, even though it is described as an evolving health crisis for the UK which will cost the NHS an estimated £9bn over the next five years.
Solution: A collaboration with Falmouth University and ESA has led to the design of a novel self-management tool which combines real-time air quality data with a simple self-assessment interface. This helps users understand the risks of poor air quality, and where necessary, schedule lifestyle activities to limit the side effects to their health.
Impact: The tool is delivered over NHS WiFi to drive engagement and encourage use. Regional Field Trials will provide an impact evaluation in 2020.
The project team are now collaborating with Exeter University for a multi-million GBP, five year interdisciplinary research programme to scale the technology into a service supporting air pollution reduction nationally.
3: LOCAL SECURE DATA INTEROPERABILITY
Issue: High street pharmacies staff are skilled to provide clinical advice to patients referred by their GP. Conventionally, the process relies on paper-based and email-based communications, which are risky and time-consuming. Devon wants to integrate such services between all 169 GP practices with over 200 pharmacies operated by up to 10 different businesses.
Solution: Fully compatible software to that used in GP practices was licenced to a virtual organisation acting on behalf of all pharmacy businesses in Devon.
The system was configured to establish controlled access data sharing clusters of GPs and pharmacies to enable full electronic data transfer for appointments and medical records acess.
Impact: This is the second time full interoperability has been achieved in this setting.
The project was rapidly delivered in 2 months, reducing set-up costs by over £20,000.
Participating pharmacies are able to generate additional monthly revenues of £2,000.
National pharmacy chains are now keen to roll out the service in other regions in England.
4: USER-LED RESEARCH IN RARE HEALTH CONDITIONS
Issue: There are over 6,000 rare diseases and the cost to solve any individual one is not cost-efficient. Yet in total, over 5 million British citizens have rare diseases. How can rare disease research become commercially viable?
Solution: Working collaboratively as a team of interdisciplinary specialists, a novel innovation and care service funnel concept was designed that would ensure all system agents and stakeholders could plan and invest in to a trust-worthy ring-fenced service agreement.
Impact: The concept was a radical approach in a conservative industry. The client was sufficiently inspired that the collaborative will now receive investment to develop the concept into a feasibility study.
5: DIGITAL BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
Issue: Sugar labeling on foods is misleading and can contribute to unhealthy dietary habits, leading to the onset of avoidable long-term conditions. The food industry is reluctant to take responsibility as it risks impact to revenues and brands, yet public health and the NHS carries the cost of the impact for many years after.
Solution: A fun and easy-to-use mobile application was designed that scans product barcodes and displays the sugar content as a pile of animated sugar cubes, helping users of all ages to learn about the sugar content and thus make an informed choice.
Impact: The product resonated strongly with parents and was integrated in to the Public Health England 5-a-day campaign.
The long-term effect of public health campaigns are complex and constantly under review.
The product was enhanced two years later to include fat and carbohydrate content in processed foods.
6: NATIONAL DIGITAL SELF-SUPPORT
Issue: NHS Direct wanted to increase the volume of support they made available without increasing costs or compromising patient safety. They also had to overcome traditional organisational silos between clinical, content and digital teams.
Solution: Existing business unit silos were combined into a single, virtual team, to create a culture that embraced the benefits of digital.
This enabled an innovative suite of online self-assessment tools to be developed, which directly linked to existing telephony services for handling high risk patients, whilst effectively signposting low-risk users to self-care, pharmacies and GPs.
Impact: The service handled over 50,000 daily during the Swine Flu epidemic, reducing attendance at GP practices or A&E to sustainable levels.
Within 2 years, the service was cost-neutral – by redirecting users to appropriate, lower-cost services and self-care, the savings made equalled operational overheads.
Many staff now lead key digital projects in the NHS, including 111.
7: GLOBAL ONLINE CONSULTATION SERVICES
Issue: Health insurers are highly competitive, generating low margins so they constantly require new USP to drive sales propositions. The client had been offered a trial of an online health consultation platform but lacked the strategy to implement and assess the benefits.
Solution: A full strategy, including market analysis for competitive advantage, operating model design as well as statutory requirements for professionals operating across international boundaries ensured the client could achieve a balanced approach to assessing the offer and the options for piloting it.
Impact: Based on the recommendation, a more cost-effective solution was identified, saving the business £200,000 in licence fees. The strategy was sufficiently coherent to enable pilots in 10 international business units to be conducted. This was the first insurer to provide such a global service.
8: DEVELOPING A CASE FOR DIGITAL SERVICE PROVISION
Issue: The NHS is a federation of service providers and commissioners, driven by central guidance and mandates. Change is costly and resisted in this conservative and risk-averse sector. Digital services would help to reduce pressure on services and overheads as well as reduce the system carbon footprint.
Solution: A report, Digital First, was researched and written for the Department of Health. It cited ten readily available digital tools and channels which could contribute to a multi-channel health service.
The report included cost benefits to the NHS and the economy as well the estimated reduction in the carbon footprint for NHS services.
Impact: The report was launched by the outgoing CEO of the NHS and subsequently cited by the Health Secretary in Parliament as a core need for the NHS.
Within ten years (a short time in the NHS), the ambition and lexicon of the report was published into the service contract for all GP practices in England.
9: ACTIVITIES IN SOCIAL IMPACT:
Issue: Clinical research methods assess the impact of health conditions or treatments on large study populations to identify broad benefits and side effects.
This limits personalised analysis that could optimise outcomes for much smaller study sub-groups and individuals, leading instead to generic care and advice which doesn’t always work.
Solution: Spidercorp has led and helped design three healthcare studies during 2018/19. These have focused on smaller populations and involved methodologies guided by the patient experience and the unique data they each generate.
Impact: To date, this initiative has secured over £90,000 in CSR contributions to support these studies and currently, one academic paper has been published.
The studies have also garnered the support of national charities related to the management of the conditions under investigation