An ambitious technology project to support the transformation of pathology services across Northern Ireland has been completed, with the go-live of the Clinisys WinPath laboratory information management system at the final two health and social care trusts.

Western and Southern trusts went live with the LIMS in their microbiology, blood sciences, and blood transfusion services at the end of April.

They had already gone live in cellular pathology at an earlier stage of the CoreLIMS programme to deploy the LIMS to all five territorial trusts and the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service.

Previously, both organisations were using a system developed by the Business Services Organisation (BSO) that was 30 years old and at the end of life.

Jennifer Welsh, SRO of the Northern Ireland Pathology Information Management System (NIPIMS), said: “The completion of the CoreLIMS roll-out marks a major milestone in the transformation of pathology services across Northern Ireland. For the first time, every health and social care trust is working from the same modern laboratory system, creating a truly connected service that puts patients first. This achievement is the result of exceptional teamwork across trusts, especially our laboratories as well as our partners, and I want to sincerely thank everyone who played a part.

“With this foundation in place, we can now look forward to delivering even greater benefits – from reducing repeat testing to supporting clinicians with faster, more complete information, and eventually enabling innovations like vein-to-vein tracking. It’s a proud moment for all involved.”

Northern Ireland’s pathology transformation programme was set up to create an integrated, regional laboratory service to streamline management, modernise working conditions, and improve access for patients.

CoreLIMS was developed by the Business Services Organisation to support the programme, by replacing a mix of in-house and legacy systems with a LIMS designed for modern pathology networks.

Clinisys won the contract in October 2021 and the first phase of the project was completed two years later, when Belfast and South Eastern health and social care trusts went live within days of each other in November 2023.

The second phase was delivered last June, when the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service (NIBTS) and cellular pathology services went live. The third phase followed in late October, with a go-live at Northern Health and Social Care Trust.

Karin Jackson, SRO of CoreLIMS and Chief Executive of NIBTS, said: “The completion of the CoreLIMS roll-out opens the door to future enhancements in how we manage and deliver vital blood components across Northern Ireland. We can already see real benefits from this investment with streamlined workflows across all services, including transfusion. It has been an impressive achievement, particularly given the complexity of the systems and processes involved. I would like to thank everyone involved for their professionalism, commitment and resilience that has delivered a smooth and successful implementation of CoreLIMS across Northern Ireland.”

The implementations had to be integrated with the encompass system, which is creating a single, digital health record for every citizen.

Karen Bailey, Chief Executive of the Business Services Organisation (BSO) which provided programme management, digital, procurement, legal and technical support for the programme is proud to mark this major accomplishment in laboratory digital transformation saying: “For the first time all our trusts are working from a single, modern laboratory information system, a testament to the extraordinary efforts of the teams across every region. I want to thank all involved for their hard work, resilience, and collaboration to make this transformation possible.

Robin Bell, senior project manager at Clinisys, said the final go-lives had gone smoothly, and said this was down to the hard work that had been done early in the CoreLIMS programme to standardise tests and harmonise workflows.

He also paid tribute to BSO and to laboratory staff across Northern Ireland for their work to test the new system and to provide the assurance required for successive go-lives. “This is a true pathology network,” he said. “They make decisions as a region. We have not deployed five solutions to the health and social care trust, where each one is just a little bit different to another. We have rolled out a single system that everybody uses in the same way.

“Lessons have been learned, and we have adapted our deployment model in response. Staff from labs that have gone live have been on hand to advise and support their colleagues. It has been a true collaborative effort by everybody involved. Now, we look forward to supporting the system and helping laboratories across the region to get the very best out of it for their clinicians and patients.”

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However, competition is becoming fierce and with today’s saturated market, it is becoming more challenging for companies to raise funds to stay in the game. Slowing investments, coupled with fragmented UK and European markets, mean that scaling fast is a must to be successful in this industry. How can companies readjust their growth strategy to succeed in the long run?

SAY Communications, a leading healthcare and technology PR & marketing agency, has launched a new report titled ‘Race to scale: Marketing and PR strategies to accelerate growth of remote patient monitoring companies’ which offers insights on how to navigate the increasingly competitive landscape and thrive in the digital health sector.

Stefi Rucci, MD at SAY Communications said: “Remote patient monitoring companies are no longer in a sprint, they’re in a marathon with hurdles. We’ve created this report to help companies build momentum, overcome market challenges and scale with confidence through strategic communications.”

Comms strategies have become essential for remote patient monitoring providers

With investment in the sector falling from a 2021 high of $57.2 billion to just $10 billion in 2024, the report argues that marketing and PR are no longer optional—they are essential growth levers.

The digital health boom may have peaked, but the race is far from over. SAY’s guide provides actionable insights and strategies to help companies succeed in the digital health sector. It includes:

• Trends that are shaping the market
• Growth strategies used by industry leaders
• Case studies of successful marketing campaigns

The report analyses the high impact moves that are helping leading RPM companies scale faster such as mergers and acquisitions, international expansion, and strategic partnerships, and the role of PR and marketing in each of these successful strategies. It includes real-world examples from companies like Huma, Current Health, and Definition Health, showcasing how targeted communications strategies have driven visibility, credibility, and commercial success.

The report also explores the critical role of brand storytelling, thought leadership, and data-driven messaging in building trust with investors, healthcare providers, and patients.

For companies looking at mergers and acquisitions to accelerate their growth, SAY recommends building a compelling brand story as a priority. The agency considers the ingredients of a successful PR programme, including thought leadership, internal communications, and a crisis playbook.

For companies expanding into new geographical, technological or therapeutic territories, refreshing their brand and sharpening messages tailored to each audience will be key, SAY says. Gathering insights from experts in these new territories, supported by the outsider perspective of an external comms agency, will help when building these messages.

For companies looking to forge new partnerships to help them expand their Remote Patient Monitoring business, agencies like SAY can support with crafting partnership comms’ messaging and outreach materials. The report looks at R&D company Camcon Medical who needed to kick start conversations with decision makers at chemical and medical device companies in order to identify potential partners to commercialise its innovative valve technology, which has the potential to revolutionise oxygen delivery in medical devices. SAY worked with the company’s business development team to clearly define the buying personas and the key issues that would prompt them to partner with an external company to upgrade their devices. The agency developed content marketing materials to address these topics and designed a global yet targeted Account Based Marketing (ABM) campaign, by identifying 50 companies to be approached. SAY leveraged LinkedIn ABM tools for laser-focused targeting that delivered high quality of leads.

Federico Marchisio, Associate Director, Digital at SAY Communications said: “In today’s digital health landscape, growth isn’t just about having the best and latest technology – it’s about engaging the right audience at the right time. This report is designed to help RPM companies do exactly that, with bold strategies and clever communications.”

The ‘Race to Scale’ report by SAY Communications is available to download here.

The post New Report Offers Effective Comms Strategies for Accelerating Remote Patient Monitoring Company Growth appeared first on .

In the US, nearly one in six adults is living with diabetes—95% of them with type 2. Around the world, the disease affects more than half a billion people. Alzheimer’s disease is another mounting challenge, with 6.9 million Americans over 65 currently diagnosed—a figure expected to double by 2060 and climb to 139 million globally by 2050.

To counter these rising numbers, billions of dollars are being poured into research and treatment—the diabetes drug market alone surpassed $88 billion in 2024. Now, a powerful new force has joined the fight: Artificial Intelligence.

But the real breakthrough isn’t AI working in isolation. It’s how healthcare providers and medical researchers are combining AI with advanced software tools and database technologies—especially knowledge graphs and GraphRAG (Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation). Together, these innovations are poised to revolutionise how AI delivers accurate, contextually relevant insights; amplifying its potential far beyond what AI alone could achieve.

Reimagining diabetes care for real-world patients

One of the most compelling examples of this innovation comes from US-based telemedicine startup Precina Health, which is pioneering a new approach to supporting patients living with Type 2 diabetes.

Managing this condition is complex, often requiring medication, lifestyle changes, and ongoing monitoring. For older adults in rural areas or patients struggling with technology, getting that support can be an uphill battle, so Precina’s model integrates daily support, medication management, lifestyle coaching, and virtual consultations into one seamless experience.

It’s all quite radical. “We’ve deconstructed the traditional approach to managing Type 2 diabetes and instead built a model that’s designed to work for every single patient,” says Josiah Bryan, the company’s CTO and lead AI researcher. “We’re taking a holistic view, factoring in everything to help each individual more effectively.”

But Bryan is clear: technology is the enabler, not the decision-maker. “I’m not legally allowed to practice medicine. And neither is my technology,” he stresses. “When we say we’re optimizing insulin management, that doesn’t mean the AI is doing some sort of linear regression or tweaking the prescription up and down.” Instead, AI acts as a powerful assistant to the doctor, helping clinicians deliver the ‘high-touch’ care necessary for long-term Type 2 diabetes management.

Using the AI machine to help the human doctor

Precina’s flagship system, the Precina Provider-Patient CoPilot (P3C), is a virtual assistant that joins virtual consultations, providing real-time prompts and personalised insights over video or voice. It offers far more than standard medical guidance, as it taps into the patient’s holistic health journey; in other words, P3C doesn’t just check blood sugar levels; it asks about home life, emotional wellbeing, even pets—because those details can significantly affect health outcomes.

Bryan’s team built an advanced tech stack, combining a relational database (MySQL), a custom LLM based on GPT-4o mini, a knowledge graph queried with Cypher, vector search techniques, and classical search algorithms like Monte Carlo tree search.

Central to P3C’s success is a customised knowledge graph, serving as the organising layer for everything from personal patient history to the latest research. When a clinician speaks with a patient, a real-time transcription runs through GraphRAG (retrieval-augmented generation), cross-referencing past conversations, medical records, and thousands of medical documents. This allows the system to surface the most relevant, personalised insights instantly.

He adds, “When a provider and a patient chat in Google Meet, a plugin extracts the audio, immediately transcribes it and is constantly extracting anything useful in real time by performing a GraphRAG search against the things you’ve talked about with them, their individual medical files, and thousands of pages of documentation that’s been indexed and sorted to give medical advice.”

Bryan sums it up: “That’s implemented with graph technology as a way to give a holistic view of where their patient is at in not just their medical journey but their emotional state.”

Precina’s innovations don’t stop with diabetes; his team has also created a voice-driven AI assistant accessible via a rotary phone, designed to help older adults and Alzheimer’s patients stay connected without needing modern devices.

Harnessing the power of AI

The Alzheimer’s community is also starting to see the benefits of knowledge graph-powered AI. At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center—one of the largest nonprofit academic medical centers in the U.S.—researchers are using graph technology to uncover new insights into the disease, with the goal of better understanding, and ultimately finding more effective ways to treat, Alzheimer’s.

Its initiative, the Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Base (AlzKB), gathers insights from more than 20 knowledge sources: genes, genetic links, drugs, biological pathways, symptoms, and more. Built on a graph database platform, it contains 234,000 nodes and 1.67 million relationships, organised around a detailed Alzheimer’s ontology.

From coin tosses to breakthrough

According to Jason Moore from Cedars-Sinai’s Department of Computational Biomedicine,  when used out of the box, generative AI models like ChatGPT are no better than flipping a coin when it comes to complex biological reasoning. For sure, ChatGPT can answer questions about Alzheimer’s or specific genes, but it cannot understand and reason across the dense web of relationships that underpin real medical insights.

To fix that, Cedars-Sinai integrated knowledge graphs with GraphRAG and the emerging concept of ‘Graph of Thoughts’ from Hugging Face. Now, users can query AlzKB without needing to learn specialist database languages like Cypher. Even better, thanks to the knowledge graph, the AI doesn’t just pull random facts, but reasons across the entire Alzheimer’s ecosystem to uncover new patterns and connections.

“Graph gives us a higher-level synthesis of the knowledge than we would get in any other way,” Moore explains. In other words, the knowledge graph doesn’t just store facts, but helps us reason across them, turning fragments into genuine insights.

Searching in the dark

The Cedars-Sinai team is particularly excited about using these tools to uncover hidden risk factors and potential treatments. While much of the research community focuses on the roughly 100 known Alzheimer’s-related genes, Moore is committed to pushing beyond the obvious. “Lots of people are looking under the lamp post of a known gene,” he says. “But what I’m interested in are the novel discoveries ‘over there’ in the ‘dark’—the insights that aren’t yet illuminated by existing research.” By combining AI and knowledge graphs, the team hopes to reveal patterns and connections that might otherwise stay buried.

Early results are promising. Machine learning models, informed by AlzKB, are surfacing previously unrecognised genetic contributors to Alzheimer’s, and even suggesting that common medications like Temazepam or Ibuprofen might be repurposed to treat certain symptoms more effectively.

Promising pathways

For Moore, “I think we’ve shown how we can tailor large language models and accurately query a big Alzheimer’s database, plus demonstrated how we can use the knowledge graph to inform machine learning to give us new ideas for treating this disease.”

The next step is to use knowledge graphs and machine learning pipelines to accelerate discoveries and scale this approach. Soon, researchers will be able to enter natural language prompts like, “Show me the genes linked to this drug and disease,” and the AI will run algorithms, highlight key features, and deliver clear, actionable insights. This could significantly speed up research efforts—and, ultimately, help bring new treatments to patients faster.

Across both these examples—and many others—what’s clear is that developers are increasingly turning to graphs and GraphRAG to unlock the true potential of big medical data and AI. With these tools, researchers and clinicians are no longer confined to searching under the brightest lamp posts where everyone else is already looking. Instead, they can explore the unknown, surfacing hidden relationships and overlooked treatments that could drive real medical breakthroughs.

In medicine, as in life, some of the most powerful answers aren’t found in the obvious, but in the questions no one thought to ask. With this new approach, are we finally learning how to ask them?

Dominik Tomicevic is the CEO of knowledge graph leader Memgraph

The post The AI Doctor Can’t Treat You Yet, But They Can Make Prescriptions Safer appeared first on .

But in the rush to address this dissatisfaction, we must be careful not to prescribe the wrong solution. While expanding access to GP appointments is part of the answer, it is not the whole solution. The deeper issue is one of navigation. Too many patients are trying to get GP appointments by default, when in fact, their needs could be better met by other professionals or services. To truly fix the system, we need to shift focus from simply “getting a GP appointment” to “getting the right care, at the right time, from the right person.”

A symptom of misalignment

The Nuffield Trust report reveals that only 24% of the public are now satisfied with general practice services – a steep decline from the 2010s, when satisfaction regularly hovered above 70%. Much of the dissatisfaction centres around access: long waits for appointments, difficulties contacting surgeries, and perceived rushed consultations. But beneath these frustrations lies a more fundamental problem, primary care is being asked to do too much, and patients don’t always know where to go for help.

General practice has become the default entry point for all health-related concerns, whether they’re clinical, administrative, or social. This leads to an overload of appointments that could have been managed more effectively by a pharmacist, a physiotherapist, or even digital self-help tools. If every road leads to a GP, the system becomes clogged and patients feel let down.

Understanding the ecosystem of care

Primary care should not be equated solely with GPs. It’s an ecosystem that includes practice nurses, mental health practitioners, pharmacists, and community services. Over the past decade, the NHS has invested in expanding this team through initiatives like the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS). Yet awareness and understanding of these roles among the public remains limited.

Many patients still believe they need to see a GP for everything from a repeat prescription to a sprained ankle because they haven’t been clearly shown otherwise. This is not a failure of patients; it’s a failure of communication and system design, and that’s why at X-on Health we have introduced Surgery Assist, an AI-powered digital assistant designed to transform patient access and navigation within general practice. If we don’t direct people to the right professional from the outset, we end up wasting time, creating bottlenecks, and eroding confidence in the system.

Digital triage and care navigation

True care navigation needs to be embedded within primary care teams. This includes both digital and human support—like trained care navigators who can listen to patients’ concerns and direct them appropriately. A receptionist trained in care navigation is no longer a gatekeeper; they’re a facilitator, helping patients understand their options and access the most effective care.

One of the most promising areas for improvement is digital triage. Used effectively, digital tools such as Surgery Assist can ask a few simple questions and quickly signpost patients to the most appropriate resource, whether that’s an in-person GP appointment, a video consultation, pharmacy advice, or community health support. AI-driven solutions such as this are already improving efficiency and patient outcomes at some practices. Take for example Tudor Lodge in South West London, where optimisation of their telephone systems and the implementation of Surgery Assist has resulted in a 21% reduction in their number of inbound calls and the number of missed calls reducing by two thirds.

Rebuilding trust through clarity

One of the key reasons for declining satisfaction is a sense of opacity – patients don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes. If they cannot get an appointment they will often call back at 8am the following day, sometimes enduring long phone queues, and then told there are no appointments left.

We can start to rebuild trust by increasing transparency and signposting effectively. Let patients see what services are available. Communicate the roles of different practitioners clearly. Explain what “triage” actually means and how it helps ensure they get timely, effective care. Importantly, show that GP appointments are being preserved for those who genuinely need them while everyone else is still getting the help they need, but through a more appropriate route.

Data and feedback for better primary care

Improving navigation also means measuring how well it’s working. How many patients are being successfully redirected to pharmacy, how many just needed a repeat prescription? What’s the satisfaction rate for those interactions?

Many practices don’t have the tools in place to track patient journeys across different services, or if they do have they may not have been optimised to maximise the benefit. This is a huge missed opportunity. If we want to optimise the system, we need to know what’s working and what isn’t, at a granular level. Only then can we make informed decisions about where to invest and how to redesign access pathways.

Systemic change, not just sticking plasters

Satisfaction with GP services won’t be fixed by hiring more GPs alone, although workforce expansion is still crucial. Nor will it be solved by simply extending hours or offering more appointments. We need to reframe the conversation.

Our job as system leaders, clinicians, policymakers and digital health providers is to ensure patients are getting the support they need in the most efficient, timely and compassionate way possible. That means investing responsibly in systems to support receptionists. It means training staff to use the systems efficiently and it means designing access models that are inclusive, transparent and responsive.

With tools like Surgery Assist, healthcare providers can reduce pressure on overstretched GP services, streamline access to care, and empower patients to take control of their health. By embracing these innovations, the NHS can not only recover but also evolve into a more sustainable, patient-centric system that meets the needs of a modern, diverse population.

We can restore trust in primary care, but only if surgeries implement the right tools efficiently and effectively, signposting patients to the right information, and the right care.

By Sharon Hanley, Director of Primary Care, X-on Health

The post Why Better Patient Navigation, not just more GP Appointments, is the Key to Fixing Satisfaction in Primary Care appeared first on .

Up to now, local (country- or region-specific) literature monitoring has been seen as a necessary but inefficient part of pharmacovigilance (PV). The practice is expected if not mandated by many health authorities, being the only sure way to establish that adverse drug reactions and safety signals published in such journals, web sites and/or print sources, are identified and reported. If gaps in routine monitoring are discovered during inspections or audits, this could have implications for ongoing licensing and sales, not to mention market confidence.

At a strategic level, local safety insights allow pharmaceutical companies (as well as healthcare systems) to respond proactively to emerging concerns in particular populations. They might inform labelling or guidance at a country level as appropriate, and help guide ongoing product development.

Critical, but onerous

Despite its criticality, local literature monitoring is tremendously inefficient in its current form. It usually requires dedicated staff at an affiliate or regional level, potentially with local language capabilities and local journal access. Despite the considerable volumes of content being reviewed, local monitoring may yield only limited safety information; errors/omissions are commonplace too.

Because of its resource intensity, local literature monitoring is frequently outsourced to clinical research organisations. The process typically involves monitoring a diverse range of designated sources, listed in multiple, unwieldy Excel spreadsheets where findings are also logged. Assigned teams are expected to monitor several thousand different web sites on a weekly or monthly basis.

The challenge is compounded by substantial variances in the literature format, literature access issues and language barriers. Local sources tend to lack consistency in format, indexing and language, making it difficult to implement a simple unified process, while many local journals require paid subscriptions or may be only available in print.

Additionally, regulatory reporting timelines tend to vary by country, something else that has had to be tracked manually to ensure respective adherence.

All of these challenges above present a regulatory risk, as well as a risk to patient safety. This is due to the potential to miss safety events.

It is a situation that will only intensify, too. With the growing focus on specialty drugs including more personalised and targeted treatments in oncology and for rare disease, including new therapeutics such as CAR T-cell therapies, strong drug safety/PV oversight is essential.

It is for all of these reasons that the pharma industry and its service provider community are looking to next generations of automation technology for an answer.

Advanced automation offers a big part of the solution

So what is prompting process innovation? New technology enablement, involving large language models (LLMs), is proving instrumental firstly in structuring data – enabling “normalisation”, unification, centralised management, and governance of materials, as pharma transitions to “data-first” ways of working.

In parallel, advanced “crawling” techniques are transforming automated browsing, “scraping”, and indexing of content from target web sites and publications. AI can then add a further layer, making it possible to search all of that content very quickly and identify all relevant safety events on demand.

Of course, where patient safety is concerned, there will always be an important role for human oversight and process governance. (Technology-assisted human ingestion is another option, where companies are more hesitant about immediate technology reliance.)

Persisting without automation is hard to justify now, though. Most pharma companies have come to accept that, unless they buy into technology-enabled process innovation, they will struggle with continued operational viability in this challenging world economy. With easy, rapid access to the data they need, on the other hand, PV scientists could focus on the higher-value activities that form the core of their role, even as medical literature volumes explode.

The bigger picture beyond PV

As companies transition away from laborious manual processes in their literature monitoring, the strategic potential lies in the new, richer, data-driven insights they will gain about safety trends.

More broadly, this is an opportunity for companies to better understand the safety trends around their drugs – and at a more discrete level. As well as informing ongoing drug discovery and development, early population-specific insights could also inform the respective healthcare system and patient journey in a given region, with wider societal benefits.

A Biologit white paper further exploring this topic, can be downloaded here

About the author

Jean Redmond, PhD, is COO at Biologit. She is a scientist with 10+ years’ experience in consulting, strategy and general management gained by working with multiple life science offerings and teams at a global clinical research organisation (CRO). Biologit is a specialist in advanced, technology-enabled safety surveillance solutions for life sciences.

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Open Medical has been engaged to use its PATHPOINT Referral Management platform to improve the quality of information in referrals to the service and determine the priority of requests.

The outcome should be a digitally enabled occupational therapy triage pathway that reduces the amount of time occupational therapists spend chasing and assessing referrals, releasing clinical capacity to address waiting lists.

The RCE is funded by the Moray Growth Deal in Scotland to support inward investment and jobs and, in line with this, the project should also create a new asset that Open Medical can commercialise for other services that need to balance rising demand with limited resources.

Marie Simpson, a programme manager at Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, and a registered Occupational Therapist herself, said: “The RCE is a £5 million project funded by the UK government through the Moray Growth Deal to drive economic growth, with a particular focus on digital health and social care innovation in rural areas.

“We are raising the profile of the Moray region as a hot spot for digital companies that want to develop and test their ideas and innovation for health and social care. We have partnerships in place with the public sector and citizens to act as a test bed for innovation. This project is a great example of how we work in practice.

“The local occupational therapy service, managed by Health & Social Care Moray (HSCM), has been experiencing a rise in requests for support, so we looked at the pathway and at where digital could help. Now, we are working with Open Medical to improve the service model – improving the quality of referrals and triaging them automatically.

“The project should help Occupational Therapists, because they will be able to do more of the work they trained for, instead of office admin and chasing information. It should be better for citizens, because they will be able to get the support they need, faster, and it will create an asset that Open Medical can take to other services supported by DHI’s international networks.”

HSCM’s team of community Occupational Therapists and occupational therapy assistants provides support to people who need home adaptations or equipment to help with daily living tasks, such as toileting, accessing bathing facilities or managing stairs.

Anybody can make a referral to the service with the citizen’s consent, which is screened by the access care team and triaged by a qualified Occupational Therapist. However, at times, the service receives referrals that may be incomplete or not fully appropriate, requiring additional clinical time for prioritisation and impacting routine work.

Open Medical and the DHI held workshops with Occupational Therapists to understand the challenges and what they wanted from a new innovative digitally enabled service.

The company has integrated PATHPOINT Referral Management with the Mydex CIC Personal Data Store – an RCE R&D project that makes it easier for patients to upload information about themselves and share it with local health and care and third sector services.

The integration allows patients to enter their data once to re-use to access other services, reducing the need to repeat themselves, while improving the quality of information in the referrals that the occupational therapy service and other services receive.

Open Medical will also use the automation tools in PATHPOINT Referral Management to screen out ineligible referrals, to signpost people who don’t need the service back to the local Community Connections service directory linking people to sources of help, and to determine whether users need a digital or face-to-face assessment.

Dr Tim Hoogenboom, head of research at Open Medical, said: “It is fantastic to see the DHI taking a pro-active approach to finding digital solutions to address the problems faced by health and care services, while supporting companies with innovative ideas that extend their R&D.

“Our own approach to research and development is always to start by getting a real understanding of workflow, and we have really enjoyed collaborating with the DHI and the occupational therapy team in Moray to determine how our referral management toolkit can evolve.

“At the end of the day, the systems we build must adapt to, and be supportive of, the way that clinical teams work – and not the other way around. So, if the occupational therapists need something that our technology cannot support, we’re committed to developing that functionality.

“The testing phase of the project is about to start, so we look forward to feedback from users and the occupational therapy team on whether this new solution will work not just for them, but for occupational therapy services in the UK and globally.”

Open Medical is a specialist provider of patient flow solutions. Its PATHPOINT Referral Management product has been developed as part of its work in trauma, dermatology and other clinical specialties.

PATHPOINT Referral Management improves referral quality and data capture, enabling more streamlined patient triage and reviews, and provides two-way communications along the referral pathway.

In Moray, Open Medical has completed the integration of the PATHPOINT platform with the PDS and is about to test the new referral pathway with trial users.

There will then be a process of refining the new system, before a decision is made on whether to adopt it permanently. If the project is successful, Open Medical plans to commercialise the work to create a new occupational therapy product.

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During the general election campaign, Labour said “another top-down reorganisation of the NHS” was “the last thing” it wanted. Yet, less than a year after the general election, one is underway anyway, triggered by the decision to abolish NHS England, impose cuts on integrated care boards, and require trusts to cut non-clinical staff numbers.

The combination of reorganisation and cuts is likely to have a significant impact on NHS IT, as national programmes are moved or stopped, and ICB and trust priorities change. At a recent meeting, the Highland Marketing advisory board shared some early thoughts on the likely impact:

NHS England: cut in half and then abolished

What is happening? As soon as Labour came to power, responsibility for the policy and reform agenda started to shift toward the Department of Health and Social Care, where the team developing the 10 Year Health Plan is based.

In February, NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard announced a “brutal restructuring” of NHS England, before standing down herself. Just a few days later, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced “the world’s largest quango’ would be abolished entirely.

In a follow-up statement, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting gave two reasons for the move. First, NHS England has failed. The NHS is spending more money and has more staff than it did when Labour left power in 2010, he argued, but it is delivering worse outcomes and lower patient satisfaction.

Second, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England are “two large organisations doing the same roles” and “when money is tight, such bloated and inefficient bureaucracy cannot be justified.” Transition chief executive Sir Jim Mackey wants the reorganisation to be complete within two-years.

Highland Marketing advisory board discussion: Highland Marketing advisory board members were shocked by the way the abolition of NHS England had been handled. “The way it was announced was diabolical,” said Ian Hogan, a trust chief information officer. “You have to feel for the way many staff found out” (which was often through the media).

Looking at the longer term, our experts were concerned that the changes have announced ahead of the 10 Year Health Plan. When, logically, a restructure might have been expected after the plan and delivered as part of the workforce and digital strategies that will be needed to flesh out its ideas.

“What was needed was reform, not a restructure,” said entrepreneur Ravi Kumar, “and nobody can see a reform agenda in what is happening.” This, he argued, is bad news for staff and patients, who will need to be onside with any changes proposed.

Nor does it help the suppliers that will be needed to deliver the government’s shift from ‘analogue to digital’ and enthusiasm for AI. “The government needs to give a strong steer to the private sector about where to invest, and that is not coming across,” Ravi Kumar said. “At the moment, all we are seeing is chaos.”

One aspect of the chaos is the lack of clarity about what will happen to NHS England’s digital responsibilities and programmes. Until 2019, most aspects of NHS IT sat with an arms-length body, NHS Digital. Then former health secretary Matt Hancock set up NHSX as joint unit with the DHSC.

Then NHSX was abolished, and NHS Digital became part of NHS England’s transformation unit. Now, it will probably transfer to the DHSC in some form. Although there are other options. Neil Perry, a former trust CIO who now works as a consultant, pointed out that the Government Digital Service has been revamped.

“That could be an opportunity to align the NHS with other developments across government, and to get all the government digital services moving in the same direction,” he argued. David Hancock, a former supplier exec and interoperability expert, agreed; although he also felt the government is “making it up as they go along” and being driven more by finance and headlines than strategic planning.

The centralisation of NHS IT, wherever it ends up in Whitehall, could have benefits for suppliers. James Norman, a former trust CIO who now works on the supplier side, argued it could disrupt existing relationships and create room for new ideas.

“There is an opportunity to put a system in place to open up information [about strategies and procurements] and to operate in a more open and collaborative manner,” he said. Although there’s also a risk that the large, often US, tech firms that can afford to employ lobbyists and sponsor the kind of think-tanks that generate ‘big ideas’ for ministers will become even more dominant. 

Integrated care boards: cuts push consolidation

What’s happening? The abolition of NHS England overshadowed an equally seismic shift in the set-up of the NHS; namely, an overhaul of the functions of integrated care boards, coupled with cuts to their operating costs of 50%.

On his first day back at NHS England, Sir Jim Mackey wrote to system leaders to say ICBs should focus on ‘strategic commissioning’ and population health management, with other functions moving to the centre or providers.

The idea could be to refocus ICBs on their original remit, which was to join up services and drive prevention. Which would put them in a stronger position to deliver the 10 Year Health Plan. However, ICBs will be bigger but weaker and more limited organisations in future.

So, the impact could be to shift the integration and transformation agenda towards providers (creating ‘accountable care organisations’ in the US terminology). Whatever the outcome, cost reduction plans must be in place by October.

Advisory board discussion: Highland Marketing advisory board members were surprised at the scale of the changes to integrated care boards, and the speed at which the conversation had moved from cuts, to consolidation, to a target of just 23-28 ICBs across the country.

They were also surprised at the scale of the reduction in ICB responsibilities set out in NHS England’s ‘model ICB’ blueprint. This indicates that more than a dozen functions will ‘transfer’ to the regional bodies, trusts, or ‘neighbourhood health providers’ – new bodies recommended in the ‘Fuller Stocktake’ that are forming around primary care networks, but don’t really exist yet.

Cindy Fedell, a former trust CIO who now works in Canada, said she was concerned about the focus on savings and reorganisation when policy and structure is still in flux.

“I am really worried about place,” she said, “because ICBs are getting bigger while the neighbourhood idea is still being worked out. We know that a population of around 50,000 (like Bradford, where she used to work) is where you can really make a difference.”

Nicola Haywood-Cleverly, a former trust CIO who works as a non-executive director, also argued there is a danger of a gap opening-up between policy at a national level and delivery on the ground.

“Unless we give leadership to neighbourhood partnerships and direct them to work collaboratively to serve the whole person, families and local communities, there is a risk that we will continue to offer poor and fragmented services to citizens,” she said.

In IT terms, the model ICB document says that responsibility for data will move to a new national body; but ICBs will still be expected to carry out analysis for population health management. Digital leadership and transformation will shift back to providers.

It is less clear what will happen to the primary care IT support that ICBs inherited from their predecessor bodies. The model just says that options will be considered to create a “consistent offer” for GPs. CIOs contacted by digitalhealth.net felt that shifting responsibility for digital to trusts is a backward step.

They argued it will reduce opportunities to secure economies of scale in big IT procurements and reduce the incentive for trusts to pick common or even interoperable systems. However, Neil Perry pointed out the way in which ICBs approach IT is very variable, currently.

While some have IT leads on their boards, most don’t or lean on the CIO at their largest trust. Similarly, only a handful have managed to ‘converge’ local EPR systems, mature their shared care records, or build their own analytics capacity.

So, the model may just be providing useful clarity. “If suppliers were asking me what to do, I would say build a partnership with providers,” he said, “and that is always the case.

NHS trusts: cuts drive job losses

What is happening? Trusts have also been told to deliver significant cash improvement programmes, close a projected £7 billion deficit, and reduce their “corporate cost growth” – or the additional amount they have been spending on corporate functions since the year before the pandemic – by 50% this year. 

Sir Jim has suggested trusts should look at transferring staff to wholly owned subsidiary companies, which get favourable VAT treatment. But the first response of most providers has been to look for job losses.

The NHS Confederation has estimated that trusts could have to shed between 3% and 11% of their workforce; or 40,000 to 150,000 people. NHS Providers has predicted there will still be longer waiting lists and cuts to services, with maternity, palliative care, prevention, and virtual wards in the firing line.

Advisory board discussion: The advisory board felt the cuts that are being made at trusts are symptomatic of the general rush to cut costs before bigger policy and structural issues have been thought through.

David Hancock argued that the 10 Year Health Plan is likely to require more digital, data, and analytics expertise, not less. “The government wants to see a shift from analogue to digital, but that’s not just about buying devices or software,” he said.

“You need implementation capacity, and to be able to optimise and maintain systems.” Similarly, he noted, the government wants to see the rapid take-up of AI and has just put out guidance on the use of ambient listening technology.

That is likely to reduce administrative jobs and tasks: “but we’ll need more IT people.” The model ICB document also assumes that providers can pick up digital leadership and transformation, while reducing headcount. Which Ian Hogan said is not realistic.

“There has been growth in my department, but it has not been ‘unwarranted’,” he said. “We haven’t randomly decided to grow something like cyber security. But from a financial perspective it’s difficult to justify, because the benefit isn’t seen by us, but by the clinical teams, which are protected (even though there has been considerable growth in clinical staff numbers).”

Speed is making a challenging environment even more challenging, he added. “NHS England is wanting to make savings in-year and they are asking for a plan to do it by the end of May,” he said. “But from a digital perspective, there is no low-hanging fruit left.”

The advisory board warned that amid the uncertainty, a lot of experienced people are likely to leave, taking their organisational memory and contacts with them. Trusts may need to look at bringing in consultants and service companies to plug gaps.

James Norman argued this could be a benefit to trusts, if third-parties bring new approaches, partners, and ideas with them. However, this is unlikely to be cheap. Also, it’s not clear that this is what the government wants to happen.

“Everybody is focused on the £7 billion deficit that trusts are looking at this year,” said Nicola Haywood-Cleverly. “But all they have done is chunk it up for each organisation and tell them to focus on headcount reduction. That’s going to have all sorts of consequences, and more of it needs to be thought through at a national level.”

About the Highland Marketing advisory board        

The Highland Marketing advisory board includes: Jeremy Nettle (chair), formerly of Oracle and techUK; Cindy Fedell, regional chief information officer at North western Ontario Hospitals, Canada; Nicola Haywood-Cleverly, a former integrated care system chief information officer, non-executive director for NHS foundation trusts, and health tech strategist and advisor; Andy Kinnear, former director of digital transformation at NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit and now consultant at Ethical Healthcare; Ravi Kumar, health tech entrepreneur and chair of ZANEC; Dr Rizwan Malik, consultant NHS radiologist and director of SMR Health Tech Consultancy; James Norman, EMEA health and life science director, Pure Storage; Ian Hogan, CIO at the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; Neil Perry, former director of digital transformation at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and now director at Synergy Digital Health Innovation; David Hancock, digital health strategist specialising in interoperability; Jane Brightman, director of workforce strategy at Skills for Care; Jason Broch, GP and CCIO at Leeds Health and Care Partnership.  

About Highland Marketing           

Highland Marketing is a specialist marketing, communications, market access and consultancy agency, focusing on the health tech and med tech industries. We offer an integrated range of services, covering all elements of the marketing mix, to help organisations achieve their goals by ensuring their messages are heard, understood, and acted upon by their chosen audiences. Our highly experienced and well-connected team has deep knowledge of health and care technology, strong contacts in the industry, and is well-versed in delivering effective campaigns and content. We support clients across the NHS and EMEA healthcare markets and work with clients looking to expand from the UK into international markets, and with overseas companies looking to enter the UK market.       

Website: www.highland-marketing.com  X: @HighlandMarktng

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The multi-parameter wearable solution by Corsano Health is a state-of-the-art, medically-certified multi-sensor wearable designed for continuous monitoring of vital signs.1 With features like heart rate, breathing rate, SpO2, cuffless non-invasive blood pressure monitoring, and ECG, the Corsano solution provides clinicians with seamless, real-time data to non-invasively monitor patients anytime, anywhere.

“The Corsano multi-parameter wearable will enhance our portfolio of patient monitoring solutions and help to protect more patients in more places. This innovation empowers our healthcare professionals with real-time tracking and predictive analytics designed to inform clinician decisionmaking.1 With the Corsano multi-parameter wearable solution clinicians instantly connect to realtime patient data through a powerful, flexible monitoring platform. It is a scalable, future-ready solution for hospitals seeking to modernize care by maximizing their monitoring functionality.1 Together, we are transforming the healthcare landscape, turning aspirations into reality, and forging a future where safety and excellence go hand in hand,” said Marc De Martini, vice president, Western Europe Commercial, Acute Care and Monitoring business, which is part of the Medical Surgical Portfolio at Medtronic.

This partnership underscores the critical role of continuous monitoring in optimizing patient pathways. The Corsano solution’s ability to provide unrestricted access to raw data for AI development further supports the commitment from Medtronic to integrating cutting-edge technology with world-class medical devices. Learn more about the Corsano multi-parameter wearable from Medtronic here.

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AI use cases are rippling across commercial biopharma, helping companies make faster, more informed decisions. Yet almost 70% of top generative AI (GenAI) users cite poor data quality as their most significant obstacle in unlocking AI’s full potential. As the adoption of applications grows, the true competitive edge lies in the quality of the data fuelling them.

To fully harness AI, commercial leaders are establishing a scalable, seamlessly connected data foundation across markets, functions, and disease areas. Without it, companies’ AI pilots could amount to isolated experiments. Those who focus on creating standardized and well-integrated data can unlock AI’s full potential to gain a competitive advantage and drive long-term success.

Data consistency and connectivity: the foundation of AI

Commercial biopharma teams are uniquely positioned to strategically leverage AI as they collect vast amounts of data, including customer, sales, medical engagement, and social media activity. The next step is to harmonize the data — essentially to “speak the same language” to generate accurate and scalable insights,

Consider a common scenario: One system lists a healthcare professional (HCP) as “John Smith” and another as “J. Smith.” Or perhaps “cardiology” is recorded in one database while “heart medicine” appears in another. AI may fail to connect the variations, leading to errors, duplication, and unreliable insights. These inconsistencies often stem from diverse data sources that don’t speak to each other, creating friction for AI and significantly reducing its ability to provide value.

In another example, a biopharma’s HCP database had over 25,000 specialty classifications, rendering AI-driven insights nearly impossible. The company resolved the issue by implementing global data standards, significantly improving accuracy and scalability.

While AI continues to improve in handling inconsistencies, its success still hinges on the quality of the data it’s trained on. This is especially critical in commercial biopharma, where data is often fragmented, sparse, and inconsistent, disrupting AI’s ability to generate meaningful insights.

Bayer AG’s journey to AI-ready and globally standardized data

Overcoming data consistency challenges requires an organization-wide approach. Some biopharma leaders are already making strides by prioritizing global data standardization to connect data and run advanced analytics initiatives.

For example, Bayer AG sought to create a 360-degree customer view to provide its field teams with comprehensive insights before engaging with HCPs. However, data silos across geographies made it challenging to achieve a unified view.

Stefan Schmidt, group product manager at Bayer AG, led the company’s data harmonization efforts. Schmidt understood that AI insights would remain unreliable without a centralized, accurate data foundation. “Our global data landscape was fragmented — different countries relied on different sources. To see the full picture, we needed a unified customer master,” Schmidt explains.

By harmonizing data across geographies and functions, Bayer eliminated inconsistencies and improved accessibility. The company consolidated key data sources — CRM, engagement history, and customer profiles — into a single, intuitive platform for its sales teams.

“In just weeks, we developed a solution that our teams genuinely valued,” Schmidt shares. With a single, connected source of truth, Bayer AG is now positioned for scalable, AI-driven insights across the organization.

How commercial leaders are scaling AI

Bayer AG’s experience demonstrates the power of a globally standardized data foundation and the importance of making it a strategic priority for scaling the impact of AI.

To avoid the common pitfalls commercial leaders must address three key data challenges:

1. Business: Moving AI pilots from isolation to execution

A clear AI strategy, aligned with business priorities, is the strongest predictor of success. Many organizations run local pilots without considering scalability, repeatedly building country-specific solutions based only on country data. This approach prevents data from being connected across countries and limits AI’s ability to generate cross-country insights.

To effectively scale AI efforts, commercial leaders should:

• Align AI priorities with long-term business goals to ensure they address high-impact opportunities rather than short-term experimentation.
• Collaborate across functions — data, analytics, digital, and IT — to build a scalable AI roadmap with defined resources, timelines, and investments.
• Establish governance structures that support AI adoption at an enterprise level, ensuring consistency and alignment across regions, when scaling AI.

2. Data and analytics: Establishing global data standards

Once a strategic direction is set, data and analytics teams can ensure access to high-quality, globally standardized, connected data. Piecing together country-specific data will make deploying initiatives across different markets challenging.

To overcome fragmentation, organizations should:

• Standardize data structures globally, ensuring that AI models trained in one region can be applied seamlessly worldwide.
• Invest in connectable data assets that integrate customer, sales, and engagement data across the organization.
• Continuously refine data quality, ensuring AI models are built on accurate, harmonized data that supports enterprise-wide decision-making.

3. Digital and IT: Reducing integration complexity

Technology teams play a pivotal role in making AI scalable by reducing data friction, eliminating costly integrations, and breaking down data silos.

To support AI efforts, technology teams should:

• Align data models across systems to prevent inefficient data mapping and redundant integrations.
• Evaluate process inefficiencies such as third-party access (TPA) agreements that slow down data flow and require unnecessary administrative work.
• Implement scalable data governance frameworks that streamline AI deployment across multiple markets.

Your data defines AI’s possibilities

AI adoption in commercial biopharma is accelerating, increasing the need for high-quality, connected data for more personalized engagement.

Approaching data standardization with the same urgency as defining AI strategy and infrastructure is critical. After all, the real question isn’t, “How can I use AI?” but “How can I make my data work for AI?”

By Karl Goossens, Director, OpenData Strategy, Veeva Europe

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For health care professionals, this trend represents both opportunities and challenges. The key is understanding why social media has become a popular source of health advice and how to adapt.

The Rise of Social Media as a Medical Advisor

A CharityRx study revealed one-third of surveyed Gen Zers use TikTok for medical advice, and 44% use YouTube before consulting their doctor. Convenience plays a significant role. Social media users can skip navigating appointment availability, taking time off from work or school, and attending in-person doctor’s visits.

Along with this convenience comes increased accessibility. Anyone with limited time, mobility or funds might enjoy greater access to health-related advice. Some perceive social media as a cost-effective alternative to traditional health care and insurance.

Relatability is also a key factor in why social media appears to be replacing medical professionals. Seeing younger influencers or other people share health-related challenges or tips can create a sense of trust among internet users of a similar age.

Concerns of Seeking Medical Advice on Social Media

While the reasons Gen Z is turning to social media are valid, this shift has several drawbacks.

Lack of Privacy

Social media platforms are no strangers to privacy concerns. Seemingly innocent entertainment tools on social media like facial filters can make user information vulnerable to hackers.

The majority of teens also feel they have little to no control over the personal data social media companies gather on them. As more users share medical information on public channels, their health information faces greater risk.

Spread of Misinformation

Misinformation — whether unintentional or malicious — can lead people to self-diagnose inaccurately, avoid professional medical care or seek potentially harmful solutions to symptoms. Health care professionals are trained and certified to administer medical advice and offer guidance. When misinformatiation leads to ill-advised remedies or misdiagnoses, the stakes can be extreme.

Lack of Personalized Advice

Health is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach. Various factors — such as genetics, diet, existing conditions, medications, mental health and lifestyle — influence what medical guidance is most effective for particular individuals. While one user might share their experience with the best of intentions, it doesn’t mean their advice will be applicable to someone else.

Biased or Sponsored Content

Many influencers on social media rely on sponsorships for their livelihoods. While best practices require transparency when disseminating promotional content, some influencers may not abide by this, or users might not recognize when content is sponsored.

Sponsored content runs the risk of being biased. Ideally, medical advice should uphold a stringent standard for objectivity to ensure people receive accurate information.

Implications for Health Care Providers

Gen Z turning to social media as a medical advisor presents challenges for health care providers, including:

• Declining primary care visits: As younger generations rely more on social media for health advice, drawing them into physical medical offices will become increasingly challenging.
• Increased demand for digital solutions: Younger tech-savvy patients want the convenience of telehealth appointments, online portals and apps they can access from anywhere.
• Misinformation: Health care professionals are invested in sharing sound medical advice. The spread of misinformation damages their profession and endangers populations.
• Building trust with younger patients: Younger patients may be skeptical of what medical experts can offer them. A concerning 38% of young adults have said they’ve disregarded guidance from their provider, taking advice from social media instead. Institutions will have to be creative and adapt to changes in health care to build trust with younger generations.

Tips for Health Care IT Professionals

With the increase of mental health issues like anxiety and depression, it is essential not to lose touch with younger populations in need of reputable assistance. Health care IT professionals are in a unique position to bridge the gap between traditional medical service mediums and the demands of newer generations.

Here’s how these industry experts can address the biggest challenges of social media’s influential role in medicine:

• Enhance digital presence: Medical institutions should have a presence on the most popular platforms among Gen Zers — Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. They should also follow similar entities online to create connections and get inspiration for attention-grabbing content.
• Leverage SEO: Keyword research and familiarity with the algorithmic patterns of top platforms can boost valuable content and reach the intended audience.
• Partner with health care influencers: This can maximize views and go a long way to helping build trust among Gen Zers. IT professionals should thoughtfully consider an influencer’s previous content to make sure it aligns with their own institution’s goals.
• Provide evidence-based commentary: Along with putting out content, medical facilities should engage with other social media content. This fosters an online community and helps stop misinformation.
• Encourage patient reviews: First-hand positive reviews and client testimonies strengthen an organization’s reputation for quality service.
• Implement virtual access: Telehealth capability is a great way to reach patients of all ages. Mobile apps and virtual health monitoring also give people convenient access to health-related services. From November 2023-2024, 2% of Gen Zers used a mobile health app.
• Personalize communication: Audience research and surveys can help tailor content for specific generations and communication for particular users.

Connecting With Gen Z in the Digital Health Age

Gen Z’s shift to social media for medical advice presents challenges for health care organizations, but it also offers opportunities to modernize access and content creation. Health care IT professionals can lead the way in digitizing these services to reach younger audiences and stop the spread of misinformation.

By Zac Amos, ReHack

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